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 THE CATFISH
 
 THE CATFISH 
 
 CHARLES MARRIOTT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 The Kiss of Helen, The Lapse of 
 Vivien Eady, Etc., Etc. 
 
 'For the catfish is the demon of the deep, 
 and keeps things lively. " 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1913 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PRESS or 
 
 BPAUNWORTM ft CO. 
 
 OOKRINDER8 AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN. N. V.
 
 THE CATFISH 
 
 2137234
 
 THE CATFISH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OUITE early in life George Tracy discovered 
 that if he were to be reasonably happy and 
 prosperous he must pretend. It is often said that 
 children live in a world of imagination. That may 
 be true, but George Tracy's constant endeavor 
 was to climb out of his own world of reality in 
 order to gain precarious foothold in the world of 
 make-believe created by other people. If he had 
 known the word, he would have said that his diffi- 
 culties were due to lack of imagination. 
 
 He first became conscious of his defect when 
 he was between four and five. Before that, his 
 life had been a matter of glimpses and snatches in 
 which illusion and reality were too comfortably 
 mingled to cause him any concern. It was con- 
 nected with the city of Barstow. In it there was 
 neither night nor day, but a confused twilight in 
 which his father and elder brother walked godlike 
 near the ceiling, while the room hummed and shook
 
 2 THE CATFISH 
 
 to passing traffic. Other oddly assorted impres- 
 sions of his life in Barstow were of a woman walk- 
 ing in the street in her nightgown, to the mingled 
 scandal and delight of his sister and his nurse, of 
 the lamplighter pushing up a haloed star at him 
 from below, of a shop where they cut your hair in 
 one room and sold or, he was persuaded, gave 
 away toys in another as compensation for the 
 loss of your ears, and of himself eating enormous 
 gooseberries out of a paper bag. From guarded 
 allusions in later years he was led to believe that his 
 life in Barstow had been rather shameful. 
 
 The basis of reality began for him between 
 sleeping and waking on a soft, warm, wet night in 
 autumn. It was composed of the rushing of a 
 river, sudden shouts, moving lights, the smell of 
 harness and the taste of rain as, muffled to the ears, 
 he sat between his father's and mother's legs on 
 the jolting floor of something he knew to be called 
 a " trap ". He understood that they had nearly 
 driven into the river, which, from its immediate 
 and continued importance in the scheme of reality, 
 might have been the river of life. Until, rounding 
 a high wall in the dark, as if a door had been sud- 
 denly opened upon reality, he felt and heard the rush 
 of wind and water, he had not fully awakened to
 
 THE CATFISH 3 
 
 a personal existence. He dimly remembered hav- 
 ing been got out of bed and dressed in a strange 
 house, but all that belonged to Barstow, and, rel- 
 atively, to dreamland. 
 
 The next thing he remembered was waking in 
 his sister's bed in a bare and immensely high room 
 flooded with yellow sunlight. Then followed ex- 
 ploration, in his nightshirt, of one high, bare, yellow 
 room after another, furnished principally with bell- 
 wires, long passages with stairs up and down at 
 unexpected intervals, a flagged hall, and a deli- 
 ciously cool and queer-smelling place, with slate 
 slabs along the whitewashed walls, where the light 
 came down green and trembling through leaves 
 and wire netting. This place he understood to be a 
 dairy, and the cave at one end, where his courage 
 failed, was a wine-cellar. 
 
 Then for days, weeks, months, or it might have 
 been a year, life was too crowded for definite im- 
 pressions. Either at the time or later, George 
 learned that the reason of the move from Barstow, 
 which for him had all the character of an awakening 
 into life, was that his father had been made partner 
 in the bank he had previously served, and conse- 
 quently it seemed, was become a country gentleman. 
 In course of time George had it impressed upon him
 
 4 THE CATFISH 
 
 that the social change was less a rise than a rein- 
 statement after long years of exile from a proper 
 sphere; a sphere the nature of which was not in- 
 aptly indicated to George's mind by the fact that 
 his father was able to drive a trap in the dark; 
 but at the moment he was only conscious of the 
 change. The circumstance that fixed it in his 
 mind was being taught by his sister to say " chim- 
 ney " instead of " chimbley ". In Barstow he had 
 said " chimbley " unreproved ; and this, combined 
 with his other memories and their discouragement 
 by his family, went to create the impression, which 
 deepened from this time onward, that life in Bar- 
 stow had been rather shameful. 
 
 The new house was called Bourneside. To 
 George the name was inevitable; for the brook, or 
 " bourne " playful diminutives for what in the 
 scheme of reality persisted a river formed one 
 long boundary of the estate and supplied for him its 
 moral and material atmosphere. The other long 
 boundary was formed by the road from Barstow, 
 which, following a high wall, kinked suddenly at a 
 right angle to cut off Bourneside and accompany 
 the river. It was this conspiracy between road 
 and river, aided by a drinking-place for horses, 
 that had nearly betrayed George's father on the
 
 THE CATFISH 5 
 
 night of their arrival. You entered Bourneside 
 through double gates into a yard if driving, through 
 a Gothic door in the high ivied wall that guarded 
 the front lawn, if on foot, from the short lap of 
 road in its quick turn to the river. At the far end 
 of the estate a succession of fields, which took the 
 names of their owners, covered the widening in- 
 terval between road and river half-way to Bar- 
 stow. 
 
 George's gradual apprehension of the house and 
 its environment began from the nursery, which was 
 at the very top it became significant to his mind 
 that there had not been a nursery in Barstow 
 and reached by a thousand stairs. His estimate of 
 their number was not shaken by cold calculation of 
 windows from the lawn, which told him that the 
 house had only three stories not counting the 
 dairy. The very word " story " suggested a mov- 
 ing tale, and the discrepancy between outside and 
 inside only confirmed a sense of mystery in which 
 " landing " became literally significant of a momen- 
 tary respite from perilous and toilsome goings up 
 and down. He thought of the landings, first and 
 top, but particularly top, as clear-lit and abiding 
 in a world of shadows and change. From them 
 the stairs depended in a manner that was purely
 
 6 THE CATFISH 
 
 fortuitous. At any moment the stairs might play 
 him a dirty trick; might change their direction be- 
 tween going up and coming down, stretch inter- 
 minably, trip him up, or leave off suddenly with 
 him hanging in space. Then there were half- 
 landings at the turns; frail rafts of security, with 
 no escape from sudden panic into the comfort of 
 rooms. George was quite a big boy before he con- 
 vinced himself that there was not a story, unsus- 
 pected by his elders or denied by them, over the 
 nursery. Far down in his bedroom on windy nights 
 he heard Things romping or quarreling there, and 
 he discovered it in dreams. 
 
 The nursery had three windows overlooking the 
 front lawn. The road, vexatiously hidden by the 
 high wall, came into view where it reached the 
 river, and from thence onward they were visible, 
 though obscured by trees. At the junction of road 
 and river, in line with the Gothic door, the drink- 
 ing-place for horses was flanked and explained by 
 a smithy. Partly screened, he surmised deliber- 
 ately, by a broad sycamore that overhung the 
 Gothic door, the smithy became for George the 
 symbol of the world with its delights and dangers, 
 from the knowledge of which his elders would fain 
 have secured him. It was a concentration of all
 
 THE CATFISH 7 
 
 that went on upon the hidden highway of life. 
 When later he read Longfellow and came upon 
 the words, " Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing," this 
 opinion was confirmed. From language that 
 came up to him from the smithy when a wheel 
 was being " bonded " in a circle of fire 'and steam, 
 he supposed that what went on upon the hidden 
 highway of life was mostly bad, and he conceded 
 the wisdom of his elders while secretly rejoicing 
 over its only partial success. The left-hand window 
 of the nursery, which commanded the smithy, was 
 always a more or less discouraged enjoyment. 
 
 The road, for one great moment plainly visible, 
 shelved to the drinking-place, and this constant re- 
 minder of peril escaped on the night of arrival was 
 the cause of George's extreme delight. The Bourne 
 was hill-fed and badly channeled, and at heavy 
 rains it rose with amazing rapidity. The drinking- 
 place was one of its earliest doors to freedom, and 
 from his nursery windows George had the periodical 
 joy of a smithy quenched, and horses all but swim- 
 ming. Time after time he woke to the same for- 
 mula " The flood's out ! " shouted through the 
 house by the earliest astir; and one winter evening 
 on setting out for some village entertainment, he 
 had the supreme thrill of water lapping the stone
 
 8 THE CATFISH 
 
 step from the Gothic door into the road. The loss 
 of the entertainment was nothing to the sense of 
 the water's having risen silently in the dark while 
 they tea-ed. In his heart he knew that their escape 
 on arrival was not forgotten by the Bourne, and 
 years later he came to Poseidon as an old enemy. 
 
 On the other side of the Bourne the ground rose 
 rapidly through trees to be crowned by a long bel- 
 fried building, now a farm, which at an early age 
 George understood to be Elizabethan. But the 
 sloping field below had for him other than historical 
 importance. It was the scene of the weekly archery 
 meeting. From the conversation of his elders he 
 gathered that archery meeting was the real test 
 of their only partial emergence from the stain of 
 Barstow. To belong to the Archery Club, which 
 was captained by the duchess, was to belong to 
 the county. The Tracys did not belong. Young 
 as he was, George felt that his father bore their 
 fate with indifference, his obvious ambition being 
 the country and not the county gentleman, and 
 his mother with dignity enhanced by regret; but 
 his brother Walter and his sister Amelia, though 
 not yet of an age to suffer from the distinction, 
 openly resented it. To them the shining targets of 
 red, white, blue and gold, though sources of in-
 
 THE CATFISH 9 
 
 terest, were symbols of disgusting and unreason- 
 able pride. A banker, they said, was as good as 
 the solicitor whose daughter had achieved the 
 county and the club by marriage, and everybody 
 knew that in his youth, in another county, father 
 had hunted. George, though not pretending to 
 an opinion, was fiercely loyal, and with Walter and 
 Amelia he was torn between malicious joy and 
 disappointment when rain prevented archery. 
 Whether in fact or fancy it often did, and " Archery 
 Day " became proverbial as a bad choice for ex- 
 cursions. For a long time George reckoned his 
 week : " Sunday, Monday, Archery Day " 
 
 From the Archery Field, which had the further 
 distinction of being the occasional scene of flower 
 shows and school treats so that it kept up its 
 historical association by remaining a tented field 
 high ground followed the tree-veiled retiring of 
 road and river to end on the right, which was also 
 the east, in a fir-wooded brow that hid the Camp. 
 A dozen circumstances, the footprints of old Rome, 
 the fact that the church lay in that direction, and 
 the first appearance of light there, conspired to 
 make the fir-wood for George the very harp of 
 dawn. On the memorable occasions when he 
 was up at sunrise he was convinced that music
 
 io THE CATFISH 
 
 as well as light proceeded from between the straight 
 stems of the fir-trees; golden music of the kind 
 that was summed up for him in the word " Psalm." 
 So filled was his life with the dayspring mystery of 
 the hidden Camp, the frank pageantry of the tented 
 field, and the worldly joys the sights, the sounds 
 and not less the smells of the smithy, that he was 
 a big boy before he recognized that, looking north- 
 east, except at early morning, his nursery received 
 no single ray of direct sunlight. He had to out- 
 grow childhood before he missed the sun. 
 
 Behind the smithy the river disappeared to 
 pass under an ascending fork of the road and 
 embrace Bourneside. As indicated by the menace 
 of the flood, the house itself lay low; indeed, from 
 the road, it always seemed to George to be cower- 
 ing behind its ivied wall an effect increased by the 
 absence of sunlight from its own ivied front and 
 long, unbroken slate roof sloping at either end; 
 but all its grounds ascended from the river. Their 
 divisions, though not large, were in George's mind 
 ennobled by capitals, and they each had a distinc- 
 tive atmosphere. Thus, commanded by the nursery 
 windows, was the Lawn, associated with the coming 
 and going of visitors, polite conversation, croquet, 
 and picking-up-leaves as a half-respite from lessons.
 
 THE CATFISH n 
 
 Since everything done on the Lawn must be done 
 in the company or under the eyes of elders, it had 
 for George the eternal atmosphere of Sunday after- 
 noon, relieved, however, by the secret knowledge 
 of a sweetbrier against the wall and a climbing- 
 place in the northeast corner to a watch-tower 
 where, concealed by a barberry, whose wood was 
 bright yellow when you broke and peeled it, and 
 whose coral and forbidden fruit was exquisitely 
 sharp, you commanded the road. 
 
 To the left, invisible from the nursery and plung- 
 ing into a shrubbery, was the Side Lawn. This was 
 a natural escape from elders, the scene of more sen- 
 sible games, such as Pirates and Crusades, and it was 
 made wistful and disturbing, you didn't know why, 
 by the decline of day when birds left their sentences 
 unfinished and life became an unanswered ques- 
 tion. The Side Lawn, for all its practical advan- 
 tages, was always associated in George's mind with 
 a hollow feeling in his stomach, sanctified by the 
 smell of spiraea. 
 
 From the Side Lawn you crept, if unob- 
 served, into the Court, a flagged way round the 
 back and kitchen sides of the house. At the back 
 were an illicit entrance, the windows, fruitful 
 by arrangement, of the pantry and storeroom and
 
 12 THE CATFISH 
 
 the hardly less absorbing window of the laundry. 
 Also, it was from here that you nipped up the steps 
 into the Orchard. On the kitchen side the Court 
 broadened and you stepped boldly, as one open to 
 question but having legitimate business, such as a 
 drink of water or to know the time. 
 
 Once here, you dawdled in the sun until remem- 
 bered and sent away. There was not only the 
 warm wide friendliness of the kitchen window, con- 
 ditioned, it is true, by the temper of cook, but you 
 were already in touch with the masculine politics 
 of the Yard, and within darting reach of the coach- 
 house, the stable, the hay-loft with its ladder 
 and chaff-cutter the coal-house, the workshop, 
 and best of all, the back door into the road. The 
 possibilities of the back door could not be better 
 summed up than in Walter's boast that from it he 
 had once seen two men fighting. 
 
 From the Yard, the Garden was monastically 
 secluded by a wall with a door in it. The door 
 was generally kept locked, but you were passed 
 through it on parole. The Garden was, or seemed, 
 immensely long, and it was high-walled on every 
 side. Highest, where it marched with the Orchard, 
 and received the full beat of sun. Here were the 
 strawberry-beds, protected less by your honor
 
 THE CATFISH 13 
 
 than by the awful gaze of those rare fruits, peaches, 
 nectarines and apricots, which even when halved 
 upon your plate on Sunday were eaten with a sense 
 of sacrilege. For a third of its length the wall was 
 given up to vines under glass, and beyond, there 
 was a door into the Orchard convenient when 
 virtue had failed. Because at the top of the 
 Garden such parvenus as plums and greengages 
 took their chance of your morality, and in other 
 places there were occasions for the conviction of 
 sin which inevitably followed upon such nice 
 problems as whether a pear had fallen or been made 
 to fall. With regard to the mere populace of cur- 
 rants and gooseberries under the wall that divided 
 the Garden from the road, parole was understood to 
 be reasonably elastic, and to include a privilege, if 
 not a duty, toward common boys who climbed. 
 Clods were condoned, but stones forbidden, and a 
 door permitted sudden excursions with sticks if the 
 force behind you justified pursuit. 
 
 For George, the risks of the Garden were chiefly 
 those of being committed by Walter and Amelia 
 against sneaking. He was not a greedy boy, and 
 with so much for the eye, nose and ear, he was apt 
 to forget the pleasures of taste, though he was 
 by no means above them. His happiest moments
 
 14 THE CATFISH 
 
 in the Garden were spent before breakfast, in what 
 Walter described as a " stuck pig " attitude before 
 a tangle of color, scent and sound in which roses, 
 lilies, carnations, lavender and rosemary were 
 separate thrills, rather than concrete realities. He 
 had always, however, a distinct impression of the 
 bush of Cape heath, known to him as " bees'-rattle ", 
 which he believed not only to attract, but to breed 
 the droning perils to his bare legs from behind. 
 
 His more sharable emotions were connected 
 with the Orchard. The aristocracy of the fruit- 
 bearing world being safely walled in the Garden, 
 the Orchard was more or less free at all hours of 
 liberty, and it was the usual playground when you 
 didn't go-out- for-a- walk. Certain trees, the Quar- 
 renders, for example, whose offspring bit rosy 
 through glossy crimson, and the unnamed variety 
 known as the " cricket-tree " from the betrayals 
 of autumn, when good stumps as well as common 
 sticks were found lodged in the branches were 
 nominally reserved for dessert; but the rest were 
 at a reasonable discretion, quite humorously 
 determined by Black Draught. Most of them were 
 of the vulgar sort, which dropped their striped 
 millions for cider. In any case it was not the 
 apples, nor yet the mixed emotions of cricket and
 
 THE CATFISH 15 
 
 other games, which endeared the Orchard to George, 
 but the fact that it sloped to the river. Here he 
 actually came in touch with the fundamental reason 
 of Bourneside, of which all its other properties 
 were but gloss and commentary. 
 
 He was quick to discover that for other people 
 it was the other way about, and he envied them 
 their freedom of thought. To Walter, for example, 
 the Bourne was running water, brown in color and 
 not over-clear, to be paddled in, bathed in, fished 
 in mainly for eels to be dammed, diverted 
 and treated generally as a convenience. Nothing 
 gave George a stronger sense of Walter's superi- 
 ority than the light-hearted way in which he 
 patronized the Bourne. In this patronage George 
 bore, under direction, a humble part, but always 
 with the hollow feeling in his stomach which at 
 that age represented emotion. Rather than betray 
 the real nature of his feelings, he was content to be 
 called a funk. In his heart he knew that he was 
 a funk but he was not afraid of being drowned. 
 He was not afraid of anything that he could give 
 a name to, but it was summed up in a sound. 
 
 You heard it even in the Orchard, but in order 
 to come under its full influence, you had to climb 
 a loose wall into the lower of the two fields that
 
 16 THE CATFISH 
 
 completed the Bourneside estate. Screened by a 
 light hedge, the Bourne accompanied the field for 
 some distance, to be lost presently behind a rising 
 bank. At the far corner, the field ran down sud- 
 denly to a gap, and there was the Waterfall. 
 
 The physical explanation of the Waterfall was 
 simple enough. A few hundred yards above, the 
 Bourne was joined by a tributary coming from a 
 nearly opposite direction. The wedded streams 
 advanced broadly and smoothly to an edge, keen 
 and straight as the edge of a razor, and turned 
 over glassily to drop twenty feet or so in thunder. 
 The water came down perfectly straight, with only 
 a transient quiver, like the shaking of spears. 
 In the middle it broke upon a rock, but on either 
 side made its own deep furrow in the water below, 
 which rolled up and over like dragons, to foam 
 away at a sharp turn and slide swiftly and darkly, 
 with yellow breaking bubbles to betray the speed 
 of it, under a bridge. Beyond, the note of the 
 Waterfall was taken up in servile human imitation 
 by a mill. Even in childhood, the mild boom and 
 quake of a mill struck George as ridiculously old- 
 womanish. 
 
 Thrilling as it was to the eye in its keen twinkling 
 edge, glassy turn, clean drop, fat upward roll from
 
 THE CATFISH 17 
 
 below and swift stealthy retreat, it was the voice 
 of the Waterfall that shook George to the center. 
 It became the fundamental bass of life. Heard 
 or unheard, blown to him heavily as he played in 
 the Orchard, or faintly as they lay abed, remembered 
 or forgotten, it was never out of his mind. He 
 lived less upon the banks than upon the sound of 
 the Bourne. Just as the smithy, the first point 
 in his personal relations with the Bourne, repre- 
 sented the vision of life in its brisk activities and 
 human joys and sorrows, so the Waterfall, at the 
 farthest end, embodied the deeps and mysteries of 
 which human life is only the surface-play. In the 
 precarious make-believe he shared with other people, 
 George was prepared to make all sorts of com- 
 parisons to the sound of the Waterfall : to him it 
 said very plainly, " Doom ! "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THOUGH deeply based in the sound of 
 "Doom!" George's life at Bourneside was 
 far from unhappy. For all its disturbing under- 
 current, it was the constant effort to climb out of 
 it that bothered him. Not that the game of make- 
 believe was unpleasant in itself, but that the rules 
 were so hard to understand. They seemed to be 
 purely arbitrary; they bore no relation to life as 
 he felt it, or even to each other. Meals, lessons, 
 cricket, going-to-church, polite conversation with 
 elders each turn of the game was independent 
 of all the rest and presented its own opportunities 
 for coming to grief. Meals, for example, were 
 only remotely connected with the satisfaction of 
 hunger. That was the simplest affair, but, un- 
 fortunately, you didn't get down when it was ac- 
 complished. In fact, meals properly only began 
 when you had eaten all you wanted, and for a long 
 time George associated the word with the horrid 
 sound of food in a dry mouth a condition that 
 
 betrayed you into the crime of drinking-with-your- 
 
 18
 
 THE CATFISH 19 
 
 mouth- full. It is hardly too much to say that 
 George's earlier life was darkened by meals. 
 
 Lessons, again, were so obscurely connected with 
 the acquisition of knowledge that they seemed 
 to have been invented for an exactly opposite 
 reason. Instead of opening your mind to its fullest 
 reach, you had to make it small and gritty in order 
 to compass them. They were difficult by what 
 they excluded. They gave you the word " Roman ", 
 but denied you all that glamor of the clanking 
 sentinel gazing Severnvvard through the fir-wood 
 from the mound of the Camp, which would have 
 made the word comprehensible and fertile. As 
 presented at lessons, it was a hard and dry little 
 thing like a parched pea, which rolled about in the 
 sensitive folds of your memory in unrelated com- 
 pany with dates. You were lucky if you cornered 
 them together on demand. It puzzled George that 
 while his elders, at meals or in conversation with 
 visitors, would speak of the Camp as Roman 
 even mentioning that coins and pottery had been 
 found there he was not allowed to talk about the 
 Camp at lessons. Naturally he concluded that 
 meals, lessons and polite conversation were separate 
 turns in an elaborate game of make-believe. 
 
 In the matter of lessons, however, independent
 
 20 THE CATFISH 
 
 reading soon came to his aid. Though lessons 
 were not for the acquisition of knowledge, knowl- 
 edge acquired by whatever means could be applied 
 to them with advantageous results. Not only 
 knowledge, but the discouraged faculties connected 
 with the life of reality, such as that of dreaming. 
 Arithmetic as done by rules and tables was a hope- 
 less muddle, but when you shut your eyes and 
 saw the figures perform their complicated evolu- 
 tions, it cleared up wonderfully. With no object 
 in these illegitimate approaches but self -protection, 
 George presently heard that he was " getting on " 
 at lessons. He was even spoken of as " rather 
 clever ". He was overcome with shame at the result 
 of his duplicity. With fear also. Sooner or later 
 there must be an awful exposure; he would be 
 forced to betray the basis of his fancied " clever- 
 ness ". He knew the real thing. It was embodied 
 in a little girl of his acquaintance of whom it was 
 said : " She knows all her tables and all her 
 dates." 
 
 Walter and Amelia, with whom, for a short 
 time, he shared the rule of Miss Arnold, were not 
 clever, but they played the game. They used no 
 illegitimate approaches to lessons from below; 
 never found the fact they wanted in memories of
 
 THE CATFISH 21 
 
 Andersen or dreamed their sums to a triumphant 
 conclusion. Right or wrong, they did everything 
 by the rules. If wrong, they took their punish- 
 ment, being kept in, or even rapped over the 
 knuckles with the ruler, tearfully, maybe, but up- 
 standing. When George was wrong, he was gener- 
 ally harrassed by the conviction that by some queer 
 light of reality he was right. He could not be 
 content to abide and suffer by rules that he did not 
 understand. It was not the punishment he wept 
 under, but the sense of being misguided by knowl- 
 edge that never could conform to the rules. 
 
 Walter and Amelia were not clever, but they 
 understood, if they did not always remember, the 
 rules. For them " hist'ry was hist'ry, and jog- 
 raphy, jography " ; there was no illicit connection 
 between the two, or of both with the Camp and 
 the Archery Field let alone the perilous associa- 
 tion of " hist'ry " with tales and " jography " with 
 earthquakes. But it was less their power of 
 keeping these and other branches of knowledge 
 pure and unmixed that George envied his elder 
 brother and sister than the extraordinary faculty 
 they seemed to share with their elders of linking 
 them up with meals, orthodox games, and on 
 the part of their elders business and politics,
 
 22 THE CATFISH 
 
 and other difficult and unrelated exercises, as parts 
 of a consistent and adequate whole. They might 
 stumble in this region, but they never seemed to 
 slip through into another world a world of solid 
 though enchanted ground, where dawn harped in 
 the fir-wood, Things romped in an unexplained 
 attic, and the Waterfall thundered " Doom ! " ; a 
 world where you moved easily, though humbly, 
 and often afraid. Walter and Amelia were some- 
 times afraid, but always of consequences which 
 were the least part of his concern. In the matter 
 of bulls, it was the actual goring and trampling 
 they feared. George would not have welcomed 
 these experiences, but what he really dreaded was 
 the real or imaginary disposition to inflict them 
 on the part of an animal that looked so noble and 
 wise, and, moreover, could not communicate its 
 intentions in articulate language. If a bull could 
 have spoken, he would have dared its horns and 
 hoofs with a comparatively light heart. As it 
 was, he could not distinguish his fear of bulls and 
 other large animals from his fear of God; in each 
 case fear was equally mixed up with love and 
 reverence. 
 
 Even in manhood he could not quite believe 
 that horned cattle and big dogs were not nobler
 
 THE CATFISH 23 
 
 and wiser than he was though perhaps not 
 so clever. At seven years old, he never doubted 
 the fact, though he found it convenient to pretend 
 otherwise. The difference between his and 
 Walter's and Amelia's fears was best illustrated 
 by their respective attitudes to thunder and light- 
 ning. They feared the lightning; he the thunder. 
 In vain they argued that lightning killed, while 
 thunder was only a noise. Intellectually he as- 
 sented, but in his heart he knew that thunder was 
 the aw fuller phenomenon. With this topsyturvy 
 conception of the universe it was not surprising that 
 in moments of actual danger he often showed un- 
 expected courage and coolness. Then he was called 
 brave. He hated to be called brave as he hated to 
 be called clever; not out of modesty, but because 
 he knew that in that particular instance the danger, 
 as the difficulty, had not existed for him. They 
 came a lot earlier. Brave people were they who 
 could mock at thunder, walk unmoved through the 
 lowering silence of bulls, or treat the Bourne as a 
 convenience. 
 
 As he grew up and extended his circle of 
 acquaintances, he made his own inferiority the 
 standard of judgment. He could not help seeing 
 that, though contemptible, he was not quite alone.
 
 24 THE CATFISH 
 
 Other people, in varying degrees, betrayed the same 
 tendency to lose foothold in the difficult world of 
 make-believe which he always pictured as a 
 complicated scaffolding and fall through to the 
 solid ground of reality. Naturally he despised 
 them as linked with him by a common shame. 
 His heroes were all people who were perfectly at 
 home in the world of make-believe; imaginative 
 people, he would have called them, if he had been 
 familiar with the word. His father and Walter 
 in particular. 
 
 He did not see very much of his father, who 
 drove into Barstow every morning and returned 
 only in time for dinner, but what he saw was 
 all heroic. To begin with, his father could ride, 
 drive and shoot without the least appearance of 
 doing anything romantic. He preferred newspa- 
 pers to books, and meat to pudding. He smoked 
 pipes and drank beer and wine as if he liked 
 them. From conversation George understood 
 that, since his elevation to partnership, his father 
 had set the business on its legs; and he pictured 
 him doing it with his bare hands, as he had 
 seen the men putting up trestle-tables in the 
 Archery Field for school treats. 
 
 Of his father's forthright methods with nature
 
 THE CATFISH 25 
 
 he had the evidence of his own eyes on Sundays. 
 His father was a passionate gardener, with no more 
 respect for the natural divisions of the earth than 
 he had for the susceptibilities of his neighbors. He 
 would have down a wall or shift an asparagus-bed 
 as soon as look at it. George thought of him as al- 
 ways with a priming-knife in his hand, but that his 
 energies were not purely destructive he knew from 
 the extraordinary richness of their table in fruit and 
 vegetables, as well as from the reputation the 
 Garden presently acquired. But the destructive 
 energies most impressed him. There was the re- 
 moval of the mulberry-tree. Enormous, in the 
 midst of the Garden, it was for George the very 
 symbol of permanence; a Tree Ygdrasil, whose 
 roots encompassed the world and whose branches 
 were a kingdom. Moreover, George was very fond 
 of its fruit. Their strange flavor, so mellow and 
 yet so sharp, released pictures in his brain of 
 Turks and Venetians and the Great Wall of China, 
 so that he instinctively closed his eyes whenever 
 he swallowed a mulberry. In autumn, new sacks 
 were spread on the grass plot which surrounded 
 the great tree to catch the fruit; and to the end 
 of his life George could not look at new sacks 
 without seeing them stained with mulberry-juice.
 
 26 THE CATFISH 
 
 One Sunday George observed his father walking 
 round and round the tree, thoughtfully stroking his 
 beard. Between the thrill that every child feels 
 at the prospect of change, regret and awe, he heard 
 him say that the tree robbed the Garden of more 
 than its value. The very next day a small army 
 of men descended upon the tree with pickaxes 
 and shovels, and it was as if the abyss had. been 
 opened. In a morning the symbol of permanence 
 had ceased to exist at a word from his father, whose 
 week-day viceroy in the Garden, Dicky Dando, 
 wrung his hands over the operations thus giving 
 the measure of their audacity. But George had 
 heard his father speak of Dicky as " an old fool ". 
 
 Outside the Garden George was most impressed 
 by the things his father did not do. He did not 
 go to church. Nor did he ever pay visits, though 
 people came to him. Young as he was, George 
 felt the weight of this passivity, and he surmised 
 that his father must have some natural authority 
 denied to other men. He did not know what it was, 
 but he observed that his father might have been a 
 more important local figure than he chose to be. 
 At one time George supposed that his father's 
 power was due to his being a banker and so con- 
 trolling all the money in the world; but observing
 
 THE CATFISH 27 
 
 that his principal partner, Mr. Burroughs, was 
 obviously a man of straw, he concluded that there 
 must be some other reason. Whatever it was, it 
 resulted in other people making advances to which 
 his father did not respond. From stray hints 
 George was led to believe that his mother sometimes 
 gently complained at the sacrifice of social ad- 
 vantages; and he gathered that what acquaintances 
 she made were at the risk of his father's displeasure. 
 Visitors often gave George the impression of be- 
 ing anxious to repair a mistake. 
 
 To himself, his father was kind though indulgent. 
 Evidently he recognized that George was a failure 
 in the world of affairs. He did not expect from 
 him the intelligence, courage and bodily prowess 
 that he exacted from Walter. Whenever George 
 tried to attract his father's attention to some hard- 
 won accomplishment in these phases of ac f ivity, his 
 father good-humoredly turned the conversation 
 upon books. This, though galling, was inevitable, 
 and could be borne so long as his father did not 
 suspect, as he evidently did not, his real inferiority 
 which included and explained his increasing 
 proficiency at lessons. 
 
 With his mother it was different. Almost as 
 soon as he became aware of himself George sus-
 
 28 THE CATFISH 
 
 pected that she understood him, and that she 
 gloated secretly over his inferiority. The reason, 
 he surmised, was that she herself made a com- 
 paratively poor job of the life of make-believe. He 
 observed that she had not his father's and brother's 
 glorious freedom with words; that, like himself, 
 she was often bothered by the weight of meaning 
 that hung to them. He loved his mother, of 
 course, but he resented her tendency to give him 
 away. He did not mind being called a " duffer ", 
 " silly ", or even a " coward ", but he did mind the 
 basis of the weaknesses indicated being exposed. 
 His mother sometimes tried to smooth over his 
 natural differences with Miss Arnold, and he knew 
 that she repeated his most unguarded sayings to 
 his father. Consequently, he kept his mother at a 
 little distance a distance that she was always try- 
 ing in some crafty way to diminish. 
 
 On summer evenings she would call him to sit 
 with her on the Side Lawn, thus catching him when 
 the decline of day, the unfinished remarks of birds 
 and the smell of spiraea brought him nearest to his 
 basis of reality. Or, again on summer evenings, 
 she would walk with him at the top end of the 
 Garden, behind the raspberry-canes, in full hearing 
 of the Waterfall. In one corner of this end of the
 
 THE CATFISH 29 
 
 Garden there was a small, dark, irregular building, 
 sham Gothic in style and believed by George to be 
 of great age, now used as a tool-house and for 
 growing mushrooms and forcing sea-kale. This, 
 with the shadow of the wall and the sound of the 
 Waterfall, gave to the place a peculiar solemnity. 
 
 On these occasions George's mother wore a broad 
 hat and a red cloak that he never remembered her 
 to wear at any other time. With him she paced 
 up and down the walk, holding her head with un- 
 usual dignity and often smiling. It seemed to him 
 as if she moved to unheard music and he con- 
 cluded that, inspired by the surroundings, she must 
 be playing some foolish game such as he often in- 
 dulged in when let alone. He was sympathetic, 
 but on guard; and after a few turns he generally 
 began to talk rather loudly about matters connected 
 with the life of make-believe; how many runs he 
 had made at cricket, or how the apples were coming 
 on. His mother would say: " Yes, yes," absently. 
 All the time he knew that he was wanting to talk 
 about real things, that he was on the edge of some- 
 thing, so to speak, incriminating; but he could not 
 have said what it was he wanted to say, and so 
 the walk always gave him a queer mixture of emo- 
 tions.
 
 30 THE CATFISH 
 
 But it was in church that he found his mother 
 most disturbing. Even without her, church was 
 one of his most trying experiences, for it was there 
 that the life of reality and the life of make-believe 
 came to close quarters. There only needed a touch 
 to make them one, but since the touch was want- 
 ing, you had to be on guard all the time. George 
 liked being in church; he loved the organ and the 
 colored windows they sat under the Resurrec- 
 tion but he hated going-to-church ; that was the 
 nearest he could get to describing his conflicting 
 emotions. If he could have crept in quietly in his 
 every-day clothes and hidden behind the font, he 
 would have been quite happy. 
 
 What 'he dreaded most of all was blushing. He 
 never knew when it would happen; some trick of 
 the organ, some word in the lessons or even in the 
 sermon would get home upon him as he sat staring 
 unguardedly at the east window, and his cheeks 
 would flame. With his mother beside him he sat 
 in a prickle of apprehension. She might not blush, 
 but he could feel her tremble, and he was constantly 
 afraid that she would take hold of his hand. If 
 she had he would have blubbered outright. One 
 dreadful day his mother disgraced him utterly. At 
 the words of the lesson : " For I tell you that
 
 THE CATFISH 31 
 
 the troubles and trials of this mortal life are not 
 worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be 
 revealed in us," she suddenly burst out crying. 
 George's conviction that her crying had something 
 to do with his father's not going to church did not 
 make him any more lenient in his judgment of her 
 weakness. His wisdom in keeping her at a distance 
 was confirmed. 
 
 The other members of the family gave him no 
 trouble. Walter, who was five years older than he, 
 was already a man of the world. He could ride 
 and drive, swim and skate; and if he could not 
 shoot, he had more than once let off a gun. Ad- 
 miring him, George felt perfectly safe in his good- 
 natured contempt. Walter suspected nothing more 
 than that he was a duffer at games. Every word 
 of praise from Walter was treasured by George, 
 who valued success only in that which belonged to 
 the world of affairs. It was Walter who, without 
 suspecting the reason, made him feel the indignity 
 of comparative quickness at lessons. When, at the 
 age of twelve, Walter was emancipated from the 
 rule of Miss Arnold and began to attend a day- 
 school, he grandly gave George his paint-box as a 
 symbol of infancy for which he had no further 
 use.
 
 32 THE CATFISH 
 
 Amelia, two years older than George, was a 
 nonentity; a Tomlinson if he had known the al- 
 lusion. She belonged to the half -world between 
 affairs and reality. She would play cricket as if she 
 liked it, but, if Walter were not there, she would 
 pretend to sensible games such as Pirates, Crusaders 
 and the Round Table. If George despised and dis- 
 trusted those who shared his weakness, he could not 
 away with those who affected it. People who went 
 out of their way to claim an inferiority they were 
 not born to were beneath contempt. For want of 
 a better, George made use of Amelia in sensible 
 games, but he was always having to coach her. In 
 the world of reality she was blind and deaf. Her 
 games with dolls were feeble in the extreme; they 
 were nothing more than grotesque imitations of 
 the world of affairs. Sure sign of the pretender 
 in the world of reality, Amelia invented things; 
 ghosts on the stairs as if the stairs were not 
 enough and a personality for the Bourne. The 
 Bourne a person! But being meek and long- 
 haired, she made a good passive object in real 
 games; as Andromeda, or the captive Paleface 
 Maiden. She could wail with conviction as the 
 monster or the flames drew nearer and nearer. 
 
 Miss Arnold, though sometimes unfair, was
 
 THE CATFISH 33 
 
 likable. She never pretended to, nor suspected, any 
 reality outside the game of discipline tempered by 
 ritualistic recreations such as picking-wild-flowers 
 or tea-in-the-hay-field. An engaging trait was her 
 abject admiration for George's father. George 
 doubted if the admiration were valued at its proper 
 worth ; he once overheard his father mimicking Miss 
 Arnold to his mother. 
 
 The rest of the household the inconstant trio 
 of maids, Dicky Dando, who quaked and murmured 
 under the responsibility of the Garden, and William, 
 who ruled the Yard were valued according to 
 their talents and amenability to coaxing. On the 
 whole William was the most important. His con- 
 cerns the horse, guns, rat-traps and tools gener- 
 ally were further removed than Dicky's from the 
 world with which George was instinctively familiar. 
 Dicky was almost a native of George's world. He 
 didn't like the look of the weather, and had other 
 apprehensions. George was afraid sometimes that 
 Dicky understood him. Possibly that was why his 
 father had called him " an old fool ". 
 
 William was much younger than Dicky and 
 had things more his own way. Besides, Walter 
 thought more of him. He had the extraordinary 
 distinction of living on the Camp, his business took
 
 34 THE CATFISH 
 
 him often to the smithy, and he was intimately con- 
 nected with the politics of the Back Door. Most 
 of George's information about the great world came 
 through William and the Back Door. On winter 
 evenings he had the sense that the business of the 
 nation was being settled there. 
 
 Dicky Dando was utterly useless as a channel of 
 information about the great world. For one thing, 
 he lived almost on the estate, across the road in a 
 cottage, the Garden of which was visible from the 
 nursery windows. The blacksmith lived next door 
 to him, and George could not help feeling that 
 Dicky was unworthy of his privilege. He seemed 
 to take no interest in the world, and on the other 
 hand, his connection with the deeps and mysteries 
 that lay below the surface of life was rendered 
 sterile by his extraordinary stupidity. He and 
 George had always a different explanation of natural 
 phenomena. Besides mismanaging the Garden, 
 Dicky milked the cow that lived in the Orchard, fed 
 the fowls, and made the butter. He did the last 
 in a tall churn in the back kitchen, and his connec- 
 tion with mystery was impressed upon George by 
 the spectacle of him " dap-dapping " like a man 
 bedeviled, and occasionally stopping to wipe his 
 brow and mutter because the butter wouldn't
 
 THE CATFISH 35 
 
 " come ". George was persuaded that he muttered 
 charms. Then there was the occult relation be- 
 tween cream and thunder. To sum up the inferi- 
 ority of Dicky to William, while the latter rightly 
 thought much of " Mas'r Walter ", Dicky undoubt- 
 edly preferred George. Worst of all, perhaps, he 
 was in the habit of calling him " a little scholard." 
 
 This, with its implications, was becoming more 
 and more the cloud upon George's future. It was 
 understood that Walter was to follow his father 
 into the bank, but George had the uneasy feeling 
 that his parents had already given him up as hopeless 
 for such a natural promotion; his father in good- 
 natured despair, his mother with secret approval. 
 His pretending was of no avail. He was being 
 relegated to women, to such as Dicky Dando, and to 
 the things that could be done easily. As yet, noth- 
 ing definite had been said to indicate his future fate, 
 but one Sunday at dessert, when they were talking 
 about the respective merits of different professions, 
 his father said laughingly as he cracked a nut : 
 
 " Oh, George will have to be a parson, or a school- 
 master, or an artist, or something of that sort." 
 
 George knew that the first must be a joke, for the 
 simple reason that he was not good enough. About 
 a schoolmaster he didn't know though Walter's
 
 36 THE CATFISH 
 
 accounts of Mr. Shipway were not encouraging; 
 but the idea of being an artist presented certain 
 attractions though he had not thought of it be- 
 fore. He drew and painted, but only for practical 
 purposes, to remember things by, and he did not 
 suppose that an artist was concerned with remem- 
 bering. He thought of an artist as making plain 
 the mysteries. 
 
 Within the next few days it came to his ears 
 that there was an artist in the neighborhood. 
 Discreet inquiries only brought the information that 
 the artist had drawn and painted certain familiar 
 spots. No member of the household had seen him 
 actually at work, and when George found an op- 
 portunity to visit some of the scenes of his alleged 
 labors they did not look any different. He had 
 expected to find them looking tired, as if robbed of 
 their secrets. Then one morning George heard 
 from Dicky Dando that the artist was painting the 
 Waterfall. 
 
 With a sense of intruding upon awful rites, he 
 slipped through the Orchard and crossed the lower 
 field, keeping close to the hedge. When he came to 
 the gap he lay down on his stomach and crawled. 
 Yes, the artist was there. His appearance was dis- 
 appointing. He was dressed rather absurdly in a
 
 THE CATFISH 37 
 
 white coat and a broad-brimmed gray hat, and he 
 looked common. He sat on a stool before an easel 
 with a bottle of beer beside him for it was just 
 dinner-time. The boy who had brought the beer 
 stood by the water with a bent stick, pretending 
 to fish, and the artist was painting him. This in 
 itself struck George as foolish. Anybody could see 
 that no fish lived below that falling thunder. Green 
 water-snakes with jeweled eyes and golden crowns 
 upon their heads were a different matter. The art- 
 ist held his head on one side in a self-satisfied way 
 and whistled while he painted. Presently the boy 
 caught sight of George and grinned. The artist 
 looked round and said : " Well, young shaver ? " 
 
 Unafraid now, George drew near and watched 
 him at work. No wonder the other places showed 
 no sign of his labors. This man could not have 
 taken away the secret of a cabbage. He had made 
 the Waterfall as tame as a teapot, all curly where it 
 should have been straight, and absurdly festooned 
 with leaning trees. Trying to conceal his disap- 
 pointment, George said nothing, and the artist said : 
 " Well, wouldn't you like to be an artist? " George 
 said emphatically, " No." 
 
 He knew that with a little practise he could have 
 done better. He could at least have suggested the
 
 38 THE CATFISH 
 
 straight fall of the water, the deep furrow and the 
 fat upward roll. When he went home to dinner 
 he said something of the sort and was reproved 
 for boasting. Years later, when he saw a Chinese 
 painting of a waterfall in the British Museum he 
 knew that he had been right. At the time he de- 
 cided that nothing would induce him to become an 
 artist, and when he gathered from the conversation 
 of his elders that an artist was regarded as a feeble 
 unpractical sort of person, he cordially agreed. 
 
 Failing some natural employment of manhood, 
 such as the bank, or the sea, or soldiering, or ex- 
 ploring, or even driving an engine, George had as 
 yet no definite idea of what he wanted to be. His 
 great need at present was to know. He read every- 
 thing that came in his way. He loved Andersen 
 and Hiawatha and Tales of the Round Table 
 for the strange feelings they gave him and the 
 beautiful pictures they made him see; but on the 
 whole he preferred facts to fairy tales. If you 
 got the facts you could do all the rest, and most 
 fairy tales struck him as missing the real wonder 
 of the world in an attempt to improve upon it 
 very much as Amelia missed the real meaning of 
 the stairs, or the artist that of the Waterfall. How 
 things were done was an absorbing interest, and
 
 THE CATFISH 39 
 
 for that reason The Swiss Family Robinson was 
 put before Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 It was probably the birthday gifts of a tool-box 
 and what was called a " chemical chest " that turned 
 George's attention in a direction that might be 
 called scientific. The way things worked was a 
 never-ending delight to him, and he had an in- 
 stinctive sense of mechanics. Presently it was 
 said : " George will be an inventor." He knew, 
 though he could not have explained why, that it 
 was not true. He had no desire to invent things, 
 nor had he the craftsman's joy in the actual use of 
 tools ; what he wanted was to realize the way things 
 worked. He understood the principle of the steam- 
 engine in a flash ; the steam wanted to get out, and 
 all the rest followed as a matter of course. 
 
 But this very understanding of mechanics left cer- 
 tain other things only the more mysterious. The 
 barometer, for example. How it actually foretold 
 the weather. His first suspicion of the intellects 
 of people who were perfectly at home in the world 
 of affairs was caused by Walter's remark, supported 
 by Miss Arnold, that a barometer was not more 
 wonderful than a clock which was able to tell the 
 time. Let alone the difference between telling and 
 foretelling, anybody could see how a clock worked;
 
 40 THE CATFISH 
 
 ' the spring, like the steam of the engine, wanted to 
 get out, and the pendulum said, " No, you don't, ex- 
 cept a tick at a time," and so the wheels went round 
 and the day was measured. He was astounded 
 that anybody could think of a clock and a barometer 
 " in the same breath ". One was a machine, but 
 the other knew the secrets of the universe. The 
 result of the discussion, besides upsetting his faith 
 in people of affairs, was to leave him wondering 
 whether the life of affairs was not, perhaps, a wise 
 provision for regulating the movements of an in- 
 convenient curiosity. But that did not explain how 
 the curiosity, with its undercurrent of thrills and 
 fears, like the ups and downs of the barometer, 
 arose.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OUTSIDE his own household the people with 
 whom George had the closest personal re- 
 lations were the Markhams at the vicarage. From 
 the first arrival at Bourneside they were intimate 
 friends of his mother. Partly because Mr. Mark- 
 ham was the vicar, and partly because the vicarage 
 stood high, actually overlooking the Camp, George 
 thought of the Markhams as already half-way to 
 Heaven and so not to be judged too hardly for 
 their obvious incapacity in affairs. They belonged 
 by right to the world of books. Their position, 
 too, absolved them from blame in being on friendly 
 terms with the stuck-up people who attended archery 
 meeting. They had to know everybody. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Markham were oldish people, and 
 consequently outside the range of anything but re- 
 spect. There was a son at Oxford, whom George 
 thought of as already almost a clergyman, and there 
 were two daughters, Eleanor and Rose. They 
 formed the link between the vicarage and Bourne- 
 side. Both were, in a sense, grown up, being over 
 
 41
 
 42 THE CATFISH 
 
 twenty, but they were not too old to associate with 
 children on equal terms. Eleanor was tall, dark and 
 grave; Rose short, fair and lively. George was 
 quick to see that they adored his mother and that all 
 the rest of the relations between the two families 
 were determined by that. For example, it could not 
 escape him that the Markham girls took more notice 
 of him than of Walter and Amelia. He being 
 the youngest, this was perhaps natural, but at the 
 back of his mind, George believed that the real 
 reason why the Markham girls made a special fa- 
 vorite of him was that they were in his mother's 
 confidence about his inferiority which she wel- 
 comed in secret. He submitted, because he liked 
 the Markham girls particularly Eleanor but he 
 was always hoping that he would one day astonish 
 them by a thousand runs at cricket, or killing a mad 
 dog, or other evidence of masculine power. He 
 could imagine them saying : " George, we have 
 misjudged you. We thought you were no good 
 for anything but books." 
 
 Meanwhile they lent him books, softened his re- 
 lations with Miss Arnold, whom he felt they secretly 
 despised, and took him out for walks, when he was 
 divided between the pleasure of sympathetic com- 
 panionship and the risk of giving himself away.
 
 THE CATFISH 43 
 
 Sometimes he was afraid that it was all a ghastly 
 misunderstanding; that they were in league with 
 his mother to make him a clergyman. Then he 
 would have to get up and say : " I am not good 
 enough." 
 
 Color was lent to this apprehension by the fact 
 that the Markhams took in pupils generally chil- 
 dren whose parents were in India. George had 
 reason to believe that his mother regretted that 
 she had not known this before she engaged Miss 
 Arnold. Though he would have preferred to be 
 taught by Eleanor Markham, who made him think 
 of the Holy Women, he hoped that no change 
 would be made now. Without understanding the 
 reason, for the matter was never discussed in his 
 presence, he felt the difference between his father 
 and mother on the subject of church. His father 
 was quite civil to the Markhams, and at harvest 
 festival would even send vegetables, fruit and 
 flowers to the church, but George felt that he would 
 not like him to be a clergyman, and more than any- 
 thing he dreaded a dispute between grown-up peo- 
 ple, particularly with himself as the subject. 
 
 It was a little girl from the vicarage who first 
 awakened in George the idea that his own feelings 
 about the world might be respectable. It happened
 
 44 THE CATFISH 
 
 soon after the revealing conversation about the 
 clock and barometer. The little girl was not really 
 a pupil of the Markhams; she was an Indian child, 
 at school in Cleeve, the residential part of Barstow, 
 and spending her holidays at the vicarage. Her 
 name was Mary Festing. On first hearing it, 
 George thought of somebody sad and remote, as 
 became an Indian child. He could never believe 
 that an Indian child was quite English, or that 
 its parents were not somehow to blame. Color was 
 lent to this by the fact that one Indian child he 
 had known at the vicarage, was in the habit of 
 swearing. Eleanor Markham brought Mary Fest- 
 ing to tea. Directly he saw her, George recognized 
 that she fitted the conception inspired by her name 
 and unfortunate birth. She was thin, pale and 
 black-haired, with slant eyes and cold hands, very 
 grave and polite in her manners. She was just 
 eleven, two years older than himself. On touching 
 her hand he was conscious of a strange thrill, as 
 if he had been introduced to somebody out of the 
 Arabian Nights. She struck him as being finer in 
 texture than anybody he had ever met, and he ex- 
 pected her to smell of spices. He observed that his 
 mother was unusually tender to Mary Festing, and 
 this confirmed his opinion that her parents had
 
 THE CATFISH 45 
 
 wronged her. He also observed that his mother 
 \vas gently committing Mary to him; she smiled as 
 she looked from one to the other. This, while it 
 pleased him secretly, put him on guard, and at tea- 
 time he was shy and awkward. Eleanor Markham 
 did not stop to tea. Walter was inclined to chaff 
 the visitor, whom he evidently regarded as " a little 
 old woman ", and Amelia to giggle. . 
 
 During tea-time it began to rain, so that the 
 visitor must be entertained in the nursery. Walter, 
 who was now more or less independent of weather, 
 generously offered to join the party. 
 
 For a time the entertainment was rather formal. 
 Amelia exhibited her dolls, persistently engaged in 
 various domestic occupations on the shelves of a 
 tall cupboard, while Walter made funny remarks, 
 and George rather pointedly turned over the leaves 
 of his books, with such leading questions as, " Has 
 anybody seen my Pilgrim's Progress? " He knew 
 perfectly well that he wanted to attract Mary Fest- 
 ing without seeming to. She was obviously bored 
 by Amelia's dolls, and Walter's funny remarks did 
 not amuse her. But when Walter turned the at- 
 tention upon George's end of the nursery with: 
 "Made anything lately?" George became shy and 
 said gruffly :
 
 46 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Oh, nothing much." 
 
 " George is always making machines that won't 
 work," said Walter with a grin. 
 
 George was pleased to observe that Mary received 
 the information with cold politeness. Anybody 
 could see that she was not interested in machines. 
 As for the slight upon his ability, he could have 
 explained that his object was not to make things 
 work, but to see and show how they worked. Be- 
 sides, he was not allowed glue or solder, and soap 
 is a poor substitute. 
 
 " But George is rather clever," said Walter in a 
 patronizing tone. 
 
 " I'm not," he said indignantly. 
 
 Mary glanced at him out of her narrow eyes, and 
 he felt that she disapproved of what appeared to 
 be false modesty. But he didn't want her to think 
 him clever. Presently she went to a window, and 
 he was aching to ask her had she been to the Camp 
 and did she know the Waterfall. Walter said: 
 
 " You should hear the blacksmith swear ! " 
 
 This, considering her origin, was lamentably bad 
 taste, but Mary did not seem to hear it. She 
 turned to George and said : " Do you write 
 po'try?" 
 
 Walter's yell of derision covered George's " No."
 
 THE CATFISH 47 
 
 He said it unguardedly, wondering why he had 
 never thought of writing po'try, and regretting that 
 he hadn't. 
 
 " I believe he does," said Walter. 
 
 " I don't, I don't," said George furiously. 
 
 " I do," said Mary quietly, and Walter did not 
 laugh any more. 
 
 The pictures interested her more than anything 
 else in the nursery, and George began to revise 
 his determination not to become an artist. This 
 was the time of the Russo-Turkish War, and among 
 the colored plates from Christmas numbers there 
 were several recent illustrations from the front 
 pinned to the walls. About the war itself George 
 had the haziest ideas, but he hoped it would go on. 
 His father and Walter were strongly pro-Turkish, 
 because, as they said, the Turks were such good 
 soldiers, but George had a sneaking regard for the 
 Russians, because he had heard his mother say: 
 " After all, they are Christians." Remembering 
 that Mary Festing's father was a soldier, and for 
 anything he knew fighting in this very war, he 
 watched her progress round the walls with a thrill 
 of anticipation. There was one picture in partic- 
 ular that appealed to him strangely. It represented 
 a Servian woman, with her child in her arms, being
 
 48 THE CATFISH 
 
 rescued from a savage-looking Turk by a Russian 
 on horseback, who had run the villain through with 
 his lance. The artist had made the picture sym- 
 bolical rather than actual and given the Russian a 
 shield with a cross on it. Whether or not the 
 picture was a fair summary of the war, George 
 did not know or care. He did not properly know 
 who the Servians were, or where exactly they came 
 in, but the name appealed to him as meaning some- 
 thing gentle, partly on account of the suggestion 
 of " servant ". The picture excited in him a feel- 
 ing that he could not give a name to yearning 
 tenderness and passionate protectiveness combined, 
 such as he felt toward little yellow ducklings, kit- 
 tens and certain flowers. He hoped that Mary 
 Festing would notice the picture, and when she came 
 to it and stopped, he trembled in sympathy. He 
 was glad, however, that she said nothing. 
 
 Walter, who had been following Mary round, 
 with his hands in his pockets, whistling, and occa- 
 sionally giving her the benefit of his knowledge to 
 explain an incident of the war, suddenly exclaimed : 
 " I say, you kids; let's play Russians and Turks." 
 
 They all said, " Yes, let's " ; but only George 
 could understand the extent of Walter's good-
 
 THE CATFISH 49 
 
 nature. In his gratitude he forgot discretion and 
 said impulsively: 
 
 " Mary ought to be a Servian princess." 
 
 She darted him a glance of understanding. Ame- 
 lia unthinkingly agreed to the proposal, but Walter 
 began to demur. 
 
 "Oh, that's rot," he said. "Who are the 
 Servians? They're nobody; a potty little people. 
 You always want to drag in something that nobody 
 has ever heard of. And besides, there are not 
 enough of us. No; you and Mary will have to 
 be Russians, and Amelia and I will be Turks." 
 
 George hesitated and looked at Mary. But she 
 avoided his eyes, and her expression told him noth- 
 ing. He thought her unfair; how could he explain, 
 even to himself, why he wanted her to be a Servian 
 princess? Amelia, anxious only to be conciliatory, 
 began, " Couldn't we " but George cut her short 
 with, " Oh, very well," and Walter said, " Right-o! " 
 
 But they had reckoned without the visitor. With 
 blazing eyes she advanced upon George, who backed 
 in consternation. " You sneak ! " she said. " You 
 coward ! You you you liar ! You are clever, 
 an' you do write po'try, an' you do hate the Turks 
 and the Russians, and I've a jolly good mind to
 
 50 THE CATFISH 
 
 smack your head. / don't want to be a Servian 
 princess, but but but Oh, I hate you and 
 I wish I had never seen you ! " 
 
 The last words rose to a squeak as she burst into 
 tears. With a stamp of her foot and a gritting of 
 her teeth she turned and fled from the room, and 
 they heard her hurtling down the stairs. 
 
 " You've done it, Master Walter," said nurse 
 composedly, as she put aside her sewing and pre- 
 pared to leave the room. " Whenever you come up 
 into the nursery there's trouble." 
 
 " I don't care," said Walter, but sought a chair. 
 The other two had already sat down instinctively 
 to recover from the assault upon their feelings. 
 Amelia began to whimper, and Walter said : " Shut 
 up ! She's a young savage." George said nothing. 
 Scared and humiliated as he was, he knew that he 
 would not have missed that splendid fury for worlds. 
 
 Nurse came back to say that Master George was 
 to go down to his mama. 
 
 Faced with the wrath of his elders, George found 
 himself not afraid but -indignant. It wasn't his 
 fault, and it wasn't Walter's fault, he said to him- 
 self as he marched down the stairs with a new feel- 
 ing of security. 
 
 He found his mother where they had left her in
 
 THE CATFISH 51 
 
 the dining-room, with Mary's sobbing head in her 
 lap. 
 
 " It wasn't our fault " he began stormily, 
 but his mother said : 
 
 " Ssh, George," and then : " You've hurt Mary's 
 feelings." 
 
 " He hasn't," came from her lap. 
 
 His mother smiled, and stroking the black hair, 
 continued : 
 
 " You wanted to rescue her was that it? " 
 
 " I didn't, I didn't," he said, coloring furiously. 
 
 " Well," said his mother, " you should stick up 
 for your friends." 
 
 That struck him as horribly unfair. It wasn't 
 his friends but his most sacred feelings that he had 
 been required to stick up for. 
 
 " She isn't a friend of mine," he said, wondering 
 at his own boldness. 
 
 " For your ideals, then," said his mother. 
 
 That was outrageous as if one had been 
 plunged into the catechism at dinner-time and 
 George began to kick the carpet sullenly. 
 
 " You can go, George," said his mother, and that, 
 of course, made him feel in the wrong, and he be- 
 gan: 
 
 "I'll say I'm sorry if " but his mother said:
 
 52 THE CATFISH 
 
 " That will do, George," and Mary said : " I don't 
 want to speak to him." 
 
 His report to the nursery was : " Oh, it's all 
 right; she's blubbing, but mother isn't cross." At 
 the same time he felt acutely dissatisfied as if 
 he had fallen between two stools. Loyalty apart, 
 he didn't feel angry with Walter, nor did it strike 
 him as unjust that Mary should have gone for him 
 and not for Walter. He had played into her hands ; 
 it served him right for giving himself away. He 
 was not yet capable of such an axiom as : " Women 
 are the devil," but his reflections amounted to that. 
 Behind it all was the conviction, not so much un- 
 willing as distrusted for its audacity, that the women 
 were right, and that in a world of people like Mary 
 Festing, Eleanor Markham and his mother every- 
 thing would go very smoothly. 
 
 From this time he began to hold up his head a 
 little in his world of reality. He began to develop 
 a sense of humor, and with his admiration for 
 people like Walter was mingled a sort of compassion. 
 They were so easily taken in. Walter, for example, 
 believed that George was getting on at cricket and 
 boxing. It was true that he was batting straighter 
 and learning to guard his head, but that was not 
 because he understood the rules any better, but
 
 THE CATFISH 53 
 
 because he had discovered that if you laid yourself 
 out at the right angle, so to speak, things had a 
 way of doing themselves. What you didn't do was 
 more important than what you did; it was all 
 a matter of crafty evasion. It was the same in 
 social intercourse. He found that by avoiding the 
 point and using the words that other people used 
 he could talk about things of which he was entirely 
 ignorant, and still be listened to with respect. If, 
 on the other hand, he stated a plain truth, they 
 stared, or mocked, or got angry. 
 
 He did not see Mary Festing again except on 
 purely formal occasions in the company of grown- 
 ups, when he avoided her. She knew too much. 
 His feelings toward her were oddly mingled of 
 liking and resentment. He liked to think about her 
 and to imagine her as an audience, but in her com- 
 pany he felt only the desire to insult her. She, 
 on her part, treated him with lofty indifference, 
 and Walter told him, to his secret pleasure, that 
 she thought him a rude little boy. 
 
 In after life George recognized that the next two 
 years were among his happiest. He was sufficiently 
 at home in the world of affairs, lessons, orthodox 
 games and polite conversation to escape notice 
 if not to win applause and in his own world he
 
 54 THE CATFISH 
 
 had the support of another opinion. He would not 
 have recognized the opinion to be incarnated in the 
 person of Mary Festing, and probably it was not 
 consistently so, but was referred to this person or 
 that among his acquaintances; but wherever he 
 went, now, he had the companionship of an imag- 
 inary intelligence outside his own. Whenever the 
 intelligence assumed a form inconveniently human 
 as in the person of his mother or Eleanor Mark- 
 ham he could always bluff, and he found that 
 with his mother, at any rate, a humorous attitude 
 served as well as any other though she occasion- 
 ally looked wistful, as desiring fuller confidence. 
 
 The basis of his world remained the place the 
 house and the surrounding country. He was now 
 allowed a certain amount of liberty to go about 
 alone, and with every excursion fear became more 
 and more absorbed in love. The beginning and 
 end of his world was the Bourne. It summed up 
 and explained everything, physical and emotional. 
 The reason was partly topographical, because most 
 of the acquaintances whose homes were the pretexts 
 for his excursions lived upon the banks of the 
 stream. None of them had anything so thrilling 
 as the Waterfall, but several enjoyed the mystery 
 of woods, with probable caves. As a rule, how-
 
 THE CATFISH 55 
 
 ever, George's young friends ignored their advan- 
 tages and tiresomely preferred playing on lawns or 
 in fields to the possibilities of exploration; and the 
 dawdling journey up or down the stream was always 
 more to him than were the amenities of arrival. 
 
 He carried the Bourne in his heart, and it watered 
 his dreams. For most of its length it ran clear 
 and explicable, a brown-backed river of all work, 
 with mills and quarries at intervals to keep it human. 
 The mills were generally undershot, and so rather 
 furtive in character as people who concealed their 
 motives and they had the incidental interests of 
 weirs and eel-traps. The quarries, though still hu- 
 man, were bolder in their effects; they made 
 cliffs, echoed to blasting, and, moreover, supported 
 a red-stained race of quarrymen, proverbial for 
 lawlessness. But in the life of the Bourne there 
 were certain episodes let alone the Waterfall and 
 the dark moments where it had drowned its man 
 which betrayed without explaining a nature that 
 was beyond the reach of human understanding; a 
 nature that found expression in the sound of 
 "Doom!" 
 
 There was one place in particular that haunted 
 George's imagination by day and night. Called, 
 with sacred implication, the Grove, it followed upon
 
 56 THE CATFISH 
 
 the menace of the Waterfall. Between them a mill, 
 reached by a stone bridge with a graduated flood- 
 board for warning once the bridge had been car- 
 ried away gave a specious atmosphere of 
 domesticity. The dwelling-house of the mill over- 
 hung the stream, with a little window as if to spy 
 upon it between its deep glide from under the bridge 
 and broken entrance into the Grove. The mill 
 garden gave access to the Grove, but George, not 
 being on familiar terms with the miller, never went 
 that way. He approached the Grove by the fields 
 that flanked it above on either side. Climbing a 
 broken wall, he was upon enchanted ground: a 
 declivity, shaggy with trees and undergrowth, which 
 ran down to the Bourne, now secretly murmuring. 
 A little stone bridge, a single ivied arch without 
 parapets, the masterpiece of a forgotten builder, 
 connected one wooded flank of the Grove with the 
 other. To George's companions the Grove was a 
 favorite place for picnics: primrosing, paddling, 
 blackberrying and nutting in their seasons, and 
 games that grown-ups could share, such as hide-and- 
 seek. Even Walter and Amelia were not wholly 
 insensitive to the atmosphere of the Grove, and 
 were occasionally subject to panic terrors to be 
 explained loftily afterward on the same grounds
 
 THE CATFISH 57 
 
 of poachers but to George the place was an eter- 
 nal question. He felt that here, if anywhere, the 
 secret of the Bourne was enshrined; the meaning 
 of " Doom! " unraveled to such as could hear with 
 gloss and commentary by the birds. If he had 
 read Siegfried at this age he would have known 
 that here was the place of illumination. 
 
 Wanting the key, he brooded continually over the 
 enigma. The Grove meant something; something, 
 too, connected with his own destiny. Throughout 
 his life he was often there in dreams. He would 
 climb the broken wall, make his way down through 
 the undergrowth and follow the murmuring Bourne 
 to where its right bank expanded into a lawny clear- 
 ing. At the far end were two tall fir-trees, close 
 together and very slender, their tops making a dark 
 gesture upon the sky. Always that was the end of 
 his dream : the dark gesture of the fir-trees as if they 
 said, " Nevermore ! " When he first read The 
 Raven he understood that the bird was brother to 
 the fir-trees. 
 
 In reality he knew what was beyond them. Once 
 out of the Grove the Bourne had no secret, but 
 watered fields and parks all the way to its degrada- 
 tion by a suburb before it joined the Arden at 
 Barstow. Whatever meaning the Bourne had in
 
 58 THE CATFISH 
 
 his life was to be discovered between the Waterfall 
 and the Grove. 
 
 But though the Bourne was the main artery of his 
 emotional life, as it was the core of his landscape, 
 it by no means exhausted the wonder of the neigh- 
 borhood. There was the Camp, for example. To 
 reach it you followed the road from the smithy, 
 alongside the Bourne, and at about half a mile 
 climbed a steep ascent through a wood the same 
 that made the harp of dawn. You came out upon 
 a great circular plain, with sweeping mounds and 
 trenches half smothered in bracken. Higher still 
 was the church upon its long Down, keeping a watch- 
 ful eye, George thought, upon the dust of Pagan 
 Rome. From here you could see the distant Severn 
 through larches that forever sighed about Caesar. 
 
 Partly because he knew that the Bourne was only 
 a trickle to the Arden, and the Arden a gutter to 
 the Severn, George always found himself taking a 
 larger view of life in general when he stood upon 
 the Camp. He came here when things had got 
 into a muddle through being looked at too closely. 
 It corrected the proportions of both space and time. 
 Even the air was clearer upon the Camp, and the 
 smell of thyme was enjoyed with a double meaning. 
 George did not know much about the Romans, but
 
 THE CATFISH 59 
 
 he imagined them to be stoical, and the sense of 
 dead Romans ten deep under his feet gave him 
 support in his own affairs. There were other 
 memorials of Rome in the neighborhood; wide 
 marching roads, a whole chain of camps on the 
 wooded ridge that, except at one point, hid the 
 Severn, and at a distant farm the remains of a 
 villa. From George's Camp none of them was 
 visible, and the villa he had not even seen ; but they 
 were present in his mind as he paced the thyme- 
 scented plateau, and they gave him confidence. 
 
 From the Camp it was easy to reach the Down 
 which, with less definite inspiration, commanded an 
 even wider prospect. Below the country unrolled 
 like a map all the way to the hidden Severn, and 
 beyond were the faint hills of Wales. The knowl- 
 edge that this was the very " Down so free " of 
 the part song provided a general atmosphere of 
 adventure. From here both space and time, though 
 enlarged, were gloriously mixed and moving; not 
 stoicism, but progress was the moral. To George 
 the prospect from the Down was never for a moment 
 still. The sky rolled, the white roads marched and 
 forked, and one century trod upon the heels of 
 another. The galloping shade of Hickory Stern 
 with his bride a-pillion was not more romantic than
 
 6o THE CATFISH 
 
 the crawling train, nor the Haunted House than 
 the tall chimneys of Barstow. The world, past, 
 present and future, was at your feet. By rounding 
 the shoulder of the Down you had in comfortable 
 perspective the more intimate problems of life : im- 
 mediately below the vicarage garden, beyond the 
 Camp, and hidden by its fringe of wood, the rich 
 perplexity of joys, hopes and fears that was Bourne- 
 side. From the Down even the Bourne could be 
 regarded as running water with some trick of asso- 
 ciations. 
 
 All George's further excursions were westward. 
 The Severn, too big and too far for personal asso- 
 ciations, was in a double sense the Bourne of his 
 world, and it called him strangely. In all his young 
 days he never got to it alone, but the wooded ridge 
 that commanded it was not beyond a long after- 
 noon's walk. From here he could look down upon 
 the Flats and in imagination smell the ooze and 
 share the traffic of the great river. Not only the 
 ports of Wales, but America, India and Africa 
 were made free to him by the shining highway of 
 the West. At rare intervals he was actually taken 
 to the Severn, by trap, at a point that was almost 
 overcrowded with materials for wonder. It was 
 the place where Saint Augustine met the British
 
 THE CATFISH 61 
 
 chiefs and where the steam ferry crossed to Wales 
 for the Tunnel was not bored yet ; it commanded 
 the mouth of the Wye, and its red and white cliff 
 enshrined not only alabaster concrete earnest of 
 the New Jerusalem but the fossil relics of pre- 
 historic life. When in after years George heard 
 that hopeful men were digging and dredging in this 
 neighborhood for the secret of Shakespeare, it 
 seemed to him not unreasonable. Anything might 
 be found there. 
 
 For many years this was his nearest acquaintance 
 with the sea. Except, of course, for his periodical 
 visits to Barstow, where ships came up among the 
 houses, and if not ivory, apes and peacocks, at any 
 rate " bales of merchandise " could be seen upon 
 the quays. But as yet Barstow was an impression 
 too overwhelmingly rich and confused for anything 
 but headache. The crowded pictures overlapped ; 
 the chanting of sailors and briny and tarry smells 
 got mixed up with the taste of ham which father, 
 neglecting the bank and so arresting the currency 
 of the world, provided for you and mother in an 
 Italian restaurant between shopping and shopping. 
 George was not very much interested in what he 
 ate, but it always seemed to him that ham was 
 rather a poor pretext for such reckless interference
 
 62 THE CATFISH 
 
 with the business of the world particularly in a 
 frescoed room that feigned the Sunny South. 
 Something pink and foaming to the accompaniment 
 of music and dancing, with vine-leaves about, and 
 the police coming in at the end to recall his father 
 to duty would have been more appropriate. Often 
 he was sick the next day, and his general impression 
 of Barstow v/as that it was a grand but disorderly 
 place rather like Vanity Fair in Pilgrim's 
 Progress. 
 
 As yet he had found no means of expression for 
 the quivering response of his nature to the sights 
 and sounds about him. " Po'try " he tried, but it 
 remained a mechanical exercise, a barrier rather 
 than a channel, with only a word here and there 
 that touched reality. He drew and painted, but 
 for memory and elucidation rather than expression, 
 and it was more often a map than a picture that 
 recorded the wonder of an afternoon. Music, per- 
 haps, came nearest to the function of a language. 
 Most things, seen, felt, smelled, or tasted, as well as 
 heard, seemed to have their symbol in sound; the 
 music of dawn was repeated more faintly at sunset 
 when the tops of the fir-trees in the Grove for a 
 moment glowed and thrilled ; but since George had 
 not begun to learn music, and none of his family
 
 THE CATFISH 63 
 
 played or sang, he had to rely on the organ in 
 church for the articulate expression of his feelings 
 with the constant risks of betrayal into blushing. 
 To his mother he remained dumb. He loved her 
 and he would have been glad of some channel of 
 communication for the confidence she so evidently 
 desired ; but, somehow, words did not seem to be 
 the channel. At the back of his mind was the 
 idea that he was not meant to say, write, paint or 
 play his feelings, but live them. Then his mother 
 would understand.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE only thing that bothered him was the sense 
 of failure. He would have to do something 
 some day, and he was being prepared for nothing. 
 Walter had already left Mr. Shipway's for Barstow 
 Grammar School, but no sign had been made that 
 George was to follow him to Mr. Shipway's. He 
 was now nearly twelve. Could it be possible that 
 his parents did not consider him worth sending to 
 school at all? In that case he supposed he would 
 have to be a carpenter or go to work in one of the 
 quarries or even down a coal-mine. Except for the 
 disgrace to his family he would not have minded 
 any of those occupations, and he thought his 
 parents rather unpractical in discouraging his 
 friendships with the carpenter, the blacksmith, the 
 bootmaker and other tradesmen. He envied the 
 boys who assisted them, partly because they wore 
 white coats and corduroy trousers, and he pre- 
 ferred their company to that of the boys whose 
 acquaintance he made through Walter. He was 
 now just too good at orthodox games to be popular 
 
 64
 
 THE CATFISH 65 
 
 as a butt, and not good enough to become a leader. 
 Moreover, Mr. Shipway's pupils despised him for 
 being still under a governess, while the working 
 boys were inclined to admire him for his book- 
 learning. He did not connect book-learning with 
 fitness for any respectable occupation, nor did 
 Walter's friends encourage him to believe that book- 
 learning was the real meaning of school. 
 
 That year George and Amelia had whooping- 
 cough, and afterward George did not seem to 
 recover. He felt languid and at the same time 
 restless, and sometimes he was afraid that his 
 heart was going to jump out of his mouth. One 
 morning he was told to stop in bed, and Doctor 
 Fleetwood came to see him. Doctor Fleetwood was 
 brown and leathery, and walked with bent knees 
 conditions that George supposed to be due to baked 
 apples for breakfast and riding too much on horse- 
 back. The doctor put on his glasses with both 
 hands and said, " Well, you're a skinny fellow." 
 George said he couldn't help it, and the doctor said, 
 in a determined voice, " We'll see about that," and 
 put a little cold thermometer under his arm, tell- 
 ing him to count two hundred. George counted 
 four hundred and seventy-two, but his heart got 
 ahead of him, and he was glad that the doctor was
 
 66 THE CATFISH 
 
 there to put it back in case it jumped out on the 
 pillow. On the whole, however, the thermometer 
 made him feel better, and then Doctor Fleetwood 
 began to thump his chest and back, and listen for 
 the result with a little black trumpet. He looked 
 rather grave, and mother, who had been smiling at 
 the foot of the bed, walked to the window and held 
 her hands together. 
 
 In the conversation that followed, George heard 
 something about valves and a murmur, which last 
 he connected with the Children of Israel and com- 
 plaining, and he said in a cheerful tone, " I'm all 
 right, mother." 
 
 Doctor Fleetwood laughed, and said: "Of 
 course you are, young sharper." His mother 
 laughed too, but rather anxiously. 
 
 After that morning, George felt himself sur- 
 rounded by an atmosphere of consideration. He 
 was not allowed to play cricket for the rest of the 
 summer it was then July or to go for long 
 walks, but was told to sit about in the Orchard and 
 read. For a time he supposed that he was going 
 to die, and that explained why his parents had not 
 thought him worth sending to school. It was odd, 
 in that case, why they were always talking, though 
 obscurely, about his future. Everybody seemed
 
 THE CATFISH 67 
 
 interested in him. Even Walter, when he came 
 home in the evening, would look at him with an 
 expression of mingled envy and good-humored dis- 
 dain and say, " Well, how's the professor? " And 
 Miss Arnold was curiously elated about him. For 
 some reason or other George's father had altered 
 his opinion of Miss Arnold and now treated her 
 with great respect. 
 
 Then suddenly, it was all explained. George 
 was to go right away to a proper school. So far 
 from being good for nothing, he was regarded as 
 being good for almost anything if, as his father 
 said, he made use of his opportunities. 
 
 Privately, George decided to be a prime minister, 
 but it appeared that there was no need for him to 
 make up his mind in a hurry. He was to have 
 the advantages of a good education. Delighted as 
 he was at the idea of going away to school, George 
 could not help wishing that his father did not ex- 
 pect so much of him or that he would say exactly 
 what he expected and explain more clearly what 
 the advantages of a good education were. George 
 had great admiration for his father, but he was 
 half afraid that there must be a misunderstanding 
 somewhere possibly due to his own duplicity at 
 lessons. His father was a master of affairs, but
 
 68 THE CATFISH 
 
 George doubted his knowing his way about the 
 fields of learning. This did not imply any criti- 
 cism, but rather the reverse. His father was too 
 big for such things; he left them to women. If 
 George could have put it into words, he would 
 have said that his father was wise but not clever. 
 He thought of him as connected with the soil, and 
 his feelings toward him were the same mixture of 
 love, reverence and fear that he felt for bulls and 
 other large animals. He hoped that Miss Arnold 
 had not taken his father in. 
 
 He guessed that his mother was at the bottom 
 of it. When she talked to him about going away 
 to school she held him tight, but her eyes were 
 shining. Something she said about Oxford 
 prompted him to say: 
 
 " Must I be a clergyman ? " 
 
 His mother laughed, and kissed him, and said: 
 
 " Not if you don't like ; but you are to be a great 
 man." 
 
 George sighed as he wriggled free. Nobody 
 seemed to be able to give him any practical in- 
 formation. 
 
 However, the idea of going away to school was 
 too glorious for any misgivings to spoil it. Even 
 the thought of the examination that should ex-
 
 THE CATFISH 69 
 
 pose the hollowness of his pretensions to learning 
 only made him feel reckless. He was in for it 
 now. He went about telling everybody that he 
 was going away to school: Dicky Dando; the 
 blacksmith's boy, who at once promised him a pis- 
 tol; and very particularly a farmer who had once 
 called him " a young softy ", because he had wept 
 over a dead pigeon. Then he had to make special 
 journeys to his favorite haunts: the Camp, the 
 Grove, the Down and the hill overlooking the 
 Severn; to see how it felt to stand there knowing 
 that he was going away to school. He felt that 
 the Camp and the Down approved, but the fir-trees 
 in the Grove murmured a warning. " Examina- 
 tion ! " they said ironically. Something kept him 
 from thinking about going away to school in the 
 presence of the Waterfall. He would prefer that 
 the Waterfall should not know until he was actually 
 gone. 
 
 There was a reason for this, too obscure to be 
 put into articulate language, but nevertheless true. 
 The school he was going to was on the sea in 
 Cornwall a word which gave him the picture of 
 a plunging headland with white foam at its base. 
 The Bourne ran into the Arden, and the Arden 
 into the Severn, and the Severn into the sea. The
 
 70 THE CATFISH 
 
 map told him that St. Piran's might almost be 
 called upon the Severn Sea. Even there he would 
 be dogged by the Bourne. He wondered if above 
 the roaring of the sea he would still hear the dull 
 continuous thunder of the Waterfall. He could 
 not remember when it had not been the ground- 
 bass of his life. Even when recalling the dream- 
 life in Barstow, he now suspected that what he had 
 taken for the hum of traffic was in reality the dull 
 continuous thunder of the Waterfall heard from 
 afar. Convinced that his destiny was in some way 
 connected with running water, he thought it ad- 
 visable that the sea should not know beforehand 
 that he came from the Bourne. It gave him ex- 
 traordinary relief when somebody told him that 
 St. Piran's was really upon the Atlantic; the word 
 meant something leaping up and down, whereas 
 the Severn Sea could only mean flowing, flowing. 
 The Atlantic would have forgotten all about the 
 Bourne. Still, it was advisable not to think about 
 going away to school in the presence of the Water- 
 fall. 
 
 In the world of affairs he was already a hero. 
 His father now for the first time held long con- 
 versations with him about cricket and those parts 
 of learning that were only remotely connected
 
 THE CATFISH 71 
 
 with real books, such as Latin, and Walter called 
 him a " lucky kid ". As for Amelia, she hung 
 upon his footsteps all day long. His mother 
 talked to him principally about clothes and the 
 care of his health, which was now restored. 
 
 The only person who seemed dissatisfied with 
 the idea of his going away to school was Eleanor 
 Markham. She did not say anything, but George 
 could feel her disapproval. He was afraid that 
 she saw through him. Eleanor, of course, knew all 
 about schools and Oxford. One day she had him 
 to tea all by herself, and he hoped that she was 
 going to give him some practical tips about the 
 examination. But the only serious thing she said 
 was: "Be yourself, my dear boy." 
 
 He said that he would, wondering which one, 
 and then, thinking that it might remove what he 
 supposed to be the cause of her anxiety, he said: 
 
 "Of course, I needn't be a clergyman unless I 
 like." 
 
 " That's all right," she said, with her grave 
 smile. " What would you like to be ? " 
 
 " I don't know," he said. 
 
 He thought her rather unkind not to suggest 
 something. Evidently she was determined to let 
 him rush on to his fate in the shape of the exami-
 
 72 THE CATFISH 
 
 nation. But by this time he was prepared to take 
 the consequences. He would have been away to 
 school. Considering the expense, there was even 
 a morbid pleasure in imagining how his father 
 would look when he said : " George, you have 
 ruined me." With the idea of showing Eleanor 
 that he didn't care, he began to talk rather boast- 
 fully about how far and how high he could jump. 
 She listened politely, but he could see that she was 
 not really impressed, and after that he decided 
 that on the whole he preferred Rose. She was 
 a cheery person, and she had already told him that 
 school would make a man of him, which was all 
 that he really wanted. 
 
 He was to go to school after Easter. As the 
 time approached, his elation was not lessened, but 
 complicated by regrets. Disturbing as his world 
 was, and subject to the inconvenient curiosity of 
 such people as his mother, Eleanor Markham and 
 Mary Festing, he was leaving it all behind. It was 
 all the same whether he stopped away in triumph 
 or came back in disgrace; his relations with the 
 world of reality would never be quite the same 
 again, and he had only half explored it. There 
 were all sorts of things he wanted to know : about 
 his mother, the Waterfall and the Grove; until
 
 THE CATFISH 73 
 
 now he had been content to let them wait, but 
 now they became pressing. It was like leaving a 
 puzzling tale unfinished. Anyhow, it was too late 
 now, and he was glad that the Easter holidays with 
 Walter, and the constant come and go of com- 
 panions interested in himself, kept him from won- 
 dering. 
 
 Then, on the very day before he left home, he 
 suddenly slipped up in the world of other people, 
 where he was beginning to know his way about, 
 and tumbled down into the heart of his own world. 
 He, Walter and another boy, Tom Burchell, about 
 two years older than himself, had spent the after- 
 noon in the Grove in an aimless sort of way, climb- 
 ing trees, damming the stream with large stones in 
 the attempt to catch roach in their hands, and gen- 
 erally killing time. All this, of course, was evi- 
 dence of Walter's good-nature, since he already 
 talked bass and might have been playing cricket 
 with older friends. Occasionally he would remem- 
 ber his position and dissociate himself from the 
 other two by pitting them in some trial of strength 
 or skill, when Tom generally won. In view of 
 to-morrow, George did not mind this. At any 
 time he had very little of the competitive spirit, 
 particularly with people he did not like. Tom
 
 74 THE CATFISH 
 
 Burchell, who was the son of the local auctioneer 
 and still at Mr. Shipway's, was inclined to be a 
 bully. George knew that Tom envied his going 
 away, and it was partly the desire not to seem to 
 swagger that kept him from trying to outdo him. 
 
 At tea-time, they dawdled home by a high field 
 on the farther side of the Bourne. At a point 
 opposite the foot of the Orchard, George spied 
 something yellow gleaming in the low ground at 
 the water's edge. Running down the bank, he 
 found it to be a flag iris, the first he had seen that 
 year. 
 
 The extraordinary delicacy of the flower, un- 
 sheathed in a world that was yet unready, touched 
 him strangely. It was like a naked soul. Other 
 flowers were beautiful, but they had by comparison 
 what he could only describe as a woolliness, a 
 roughness of texture, which made them one with 
 their surroundings. The iris was mystically apart, 
 and it aroused in him a yearning tenderness and 
 passionate protectiveness combined. By a natural 
 association it recalled the picture of the Servian 
 woman, and Mary Festing. 
 
 He plucked the flower, and as he followed the 
 others at a little distance, he kept laying the petals 
 against his cheek. The silken touch thrilled him.
 
 THE CATFISH 75 
 
 The flower had become the symbol of the dis- 
 turbing world that he was leaving. When Walter, 
 turning his head carelessly, said, " What have you 
 found, young 'un?" George, made wise by expe- 
 rience, said, " Only a flower." Walter laughed 
 good-naturedly and said : " Silly kid," and Tom 
 said: "Look what's going to school!" 
 
 As they were about to enter the house, it occurred 
 to George that he could not take the flower into the 
 presence of his mother. She would not under- 
 stand, or rather, she would understand too much, 
 and say something embarrassing before Tom. He 
 hesitated, intending to slip through a side door 
 into the Yard and so to the kitchen. Walter, as 
 host, stood back from the front door and said, 
 " Come on," and George said, " Just going to 
 put my flower in water." Tom said, "Sappy!" 
 George laughed and was about to turn when Tom, 
 with a quick movement, cut off the flower in his 
 hand. 
 
 The next moment George knew that he had 
 struck Tom full upon his grinning mouth. He 
 could only judge what expression had leaped into 
 his own eyes by the look of absolute terror in the 
 eyes of the other boy as he reeled backward. Tom 
 was not a coward and, recovering, he put up his
 
 76 THE CATFISH 
 
 hands. But he was already demoralized, and as- 
 tonished at his own fury, for his head was per- 
 fectly clear though his heart was burning, George 
 got home again and again upon the fat incred- 
 ulous face. He knew that he would gladly kill 
 Tom if let alone, and mingled with his rage was 
 joy at the confirmation of his belief that these peo- 
 ple of affairs were helpless the moment they were 
 matched with conviction. In cold blood Tom could 
 box better than he. For George was not fighting 
 blindly; as if he had been a spectator, he knew 
 that he was using every scrap of science he had 
 ever learned. All that he was or knew seemed to 
 come to his aid, now that he was fighting in a 
 sacred cause. 
 
 Walter, who at the first blow had cried, " Serve 
 you right, Tom!" tried to interfere. He cir- 
 cled the two, laughing nervously and saying: 
 " Let him alone, George ! " " That's enough ! " 
 " You've licked him ! " And George knew that he 
 was getting really frightened. Finally, Walter 
 seized his brother from behind and held him off, 
 saying: " You'll kill him, you little fool ! " 
 
 " I mean to," said George quietly, and struggled 
 to get free. But Walter held him firmly and then, 
 seeing the look of utter exhaustion on Tom's face
 
 THE CATFISH 77 
 
 as he reeled against a tree on the Lawn, George, too, 
 was afraid, and put his hands down. 
 
 It was then that his mother came to the front 
 door. Invisible from the windows, the fight had 
 only reached her as a confused scuffling until her 
 anxiety was aroused by the absence of cries. Some 
 instinct told her the situation, and with, " Oh, 
 George, what have you done ! " she ran to Tom, 
 who leaned against the tree mopping his face. 
 
 The touch of sympathy was the last straw, and he 
 began to howl : " Lemme go home, lemme go 
 home!" 
 
 Mrs. Tracy tried to get him indoors to wash his 
 face, but he would not be persuaded, and after 
 making the two boys shake hands, Walter, only 
 too glad to escape an explanation, took the dazed 
 youth away. George felt curiously calm. He 
 was glad that he had thrashed Tom, but he was not 
 elated at his own prowess. He was a little alarmed 
 at it, as if not he but some power behind him had 
 won the victory. The only explanation he would 
 give his mother was: 
 
 " He broke my flower." 
 
 He knew that it sounded absurdly inadequate, 
 but how could he explain the sacred rage that had 
 filled him? He could not explain it to himself.
 
 78 THE CATFISH 
 
 It was all mixed up with Mary Festing, the Servian 
 woman, his mother, Eleanor Markham, the Bourne, 
 going-away and half a dozen other things. Not 
 that he had thought of each or any of them while 
 he was fighting. On the contrary, he had never 
 felt so completely one with himself; more even 
 than in church the two worlds had come together. 
 So, with a sense that, though the words were in- 
 adequate, the statement was more than enough, he 
 kept saying sullenly: 
 
 " Well, he broke my flower." 
 
 Grieved and perplexed, his mother told him that 
 he had better go up to his bedroom until his father 
 came home. In the interval, Walter gave his 
 version of the fight, with the result that when 
 George was called to his father he saw at once that 
 no serious trouble was to be feared. His father 
 was both astonished and grimly amused. He eyed 
 George with a new curiosity and addressed him 
 severely but with what George felt to be complete 
 respect. 
 
 " You must learn to keep your temper," he said. 
 " At school you will have to give and take." 
 
 George could have argued the matter. He had 
 not lost but found his temper, and besides, the 
 situation could not occur at school. One did not
 
 THE CATFISH 79 
 
 carry one's naked soul in one's hand at school. 
 But with a new admiration of his father's gener- 
 osity, he said humbly: 
 
 " I won't do it again, father." 
 
 " At any rate," said his father, " there doesn't 
 seem to be much the matter with your heart." 
 
 George knew that he had still to reckon with his 
 mother. For the secorid time in his life, his re- 
 flections amounted to : " Women are the devil." 
 They were so inquisitive; they could not let well 
 alone. What made it worse, of course, was that 
 his mother would know very well that one part of 
 him yearned to tell her all about it. 
 
 As he had expected, his mother came to him 
 after he was in bed. She carried a candle, shading 
 it with her hand. 
 
 " Are you asleep, George ? " she said foolishly. 
 Recognizing in her tone the mixture of gravity and 
 secret joy that he both loved and dreaded, he wished 
 that he could successfully pretend to be asleep. 
 
 " No, mother," he said, in a tone intended to 
 warn her that it was no use. 
 
 He heard her sigh as she put down the candle. 
 After a moment she sat down on the bed and felt 
 for his hand. He did not resist, but his body 
 stiffened under the clothes.
 
 8o THE CATFISH 
 
 " George ! " she whispered, and gave his arm a 
 little shake. 
 
 " I've said I'm sorry," he muttered into his 
 pillow. 
 
 " But you are going away to-morrow," she said. 
 
 He knew that half of him was enjoying her 
 tenderness, and he wished he could see how she 
 looked. But he kept his eyes closed. 
 
 " George ! " she whispered again, with quivering 
 lips upon his cheek, " tell me all about it." 
 
 " I've told you, mother," he said stubbornly. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she murmured, now reckless in her 
 love, "but why did you fight?" 
 
 "He broke my flower," he said. 
 
 " Ah, but it wasn't only the flower," she said 
 eagerly. " Tell me won't you tell me, George ? " 
 
 The appealing note hardened him, and he turned 
 over in the bed. He could feel his mother trem- 
 bling, and half of him yearned to her. But he 
 could not let himself go, and when she repeated 
 more coldly: "Won't you tell me?" he said, in 
 a tone of irritation: 
 
 " I really don't know what you mean, mother." 
 
 She waited for a moment and then stooping, 
 kissed him quietly and rose. Even then she 
 loitered in the room, straightening things on the
 
 THE CATFISH 81 
 
 dressing-table. At last she moved slowly to the 
 door. Until she had passed out, George would not 
 open his eyes, and then only to see her shadow 
 upon the wall of the passage. By its trembling 
 he knew that she was weeping silently. He lay 
 in an agony that was also a luxury of love. He 
 longed to cry out : " Mother, mother, come 
 back!" but the words would not come. The 
 shadow passed from the wall to lurk in his heart 
 for the rest of his life.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 GEORGE flung himself into the life of school 
 with all the ardor of the neophyte. The 
 dreaded examination he found to be only a genial 
 formality which gave him a place among boys 
 greatly his inferiors in general intelligence and 
 knowledge, but so much better acquainted with 
 the rules of the game that neither he nor they 
 discovered the former fact to his disadvantage. 
 George was a good listener, and his genuine respect 
 for people who could carry off routine with an air 
 made him popular. The routine itself he found 
 amusing. It was all too far away from reality 
 as he felt it to arouse doubts or questions in matter 
 of detail. He made many mistakes, but being al- 
 ways the first to laugh at them, he disarmed more 
 serious disapproval. Ragging he almost claimed as 
 a right; he would not have believed himself to be 
 at a proper school unless the other fellows had 
 plagued nim a little, and bullying was not more than 
 a romantic legend. 
 
 St. Piran's was near the mouth of an estuary 
 82
 
 THE CATFISH 83 
 
 that opened into the bay of Forth Enys. The 
 school was just too far from the sea, and the life 
 was too highly organized, to permit more than a 
 gradual and fragmentary acquaintance with the 
 enchanted element. Disciplined bathing gave no 
 time for dreams and kept the water as bright and 
 blue and the sands as golden to an occupied mind 
 at close quarters as they looked from the dormitory 
 windows. Then there were headlong streets in 
 Forth Enys and gray moors inland to be glimpsed 
 in the intervals of doing something with all your 
 might. All the conditions and surroundings were 
 so different from any that he knew that there was 
 no roosting-place in them for familiar associations. 
 It was like beginning life over again with a blank 
 but eager mind. 
 
 As before, however, life was dominated by a 
 sound. It came from the sea, and in character it 
 varied from a deep lowing which prompted the 
 " suck in " to which George obediently fell a victim 
 of a cow abandoned on an island to a clear ring- 
 ing note like the upper harmonics of a great bell. 
 But however affected by wind or weather, the 
 sound was always rhythmical with a definite come 
 and go as when you whistle with alternately 
 outblown and indrawn breath. Actually it came
 
 84 THE CATFISH 
 
 from a bellows buoy on a reef out in the bay by the 
 lighthouse, but to George it became the voice of the 
 whole horizon encircling his new world. Its 
 message to him was that of urgency translated 
 in the key of his mood by the words : " Keep the 
 pot boiling." The pace varied as his energy in- 
 creased or flagged, but it was always a little ahead 
 df his natural movement as determined by the past, 
 and so he was never allowed to vegetate. 
 
 At the time he did not consciously compare the 
 new sound with the old, though his deeper nature 
 responded to the difference between them. The 
 difference was repeated in the tides of the estuary, 
 the rhythmical ebb and return obliterating the 
 character of a river as he would have conceived 
 it. Thus, without his knowing it, everything con- 
 spired to lift him out of his own world. Growing 
 and flowing were succeeded by periodical activity; 
 the dominating sound of his new life, though in a 
 sense continuous, was recurrent rather than per- 
 sistent, and came from around instead of from 
 below; and since his mind, eager for the sense of 
 adventure, leaped at "Atlantic," to the entire for- 
 getting of " Severn Sea," the color of his days was 
 blue instead of brown. If he had been capable 
 at the time of analyzing the difference in his
 
 THE CATFISH 85 
 
 general conditions, he might have said that it 
 represented the difference between the clock and the 
 barometer. 
 
 Inspired by regularity in a world that was 
 altogether new, and difficult enough to absorb all 
 his attention, George " kept the pot boiling," with 
 benefit to his progress in both work and play. 
 He gained rather than lost by showing no definite 
 talent that coincided with any official grind or 
 game. His masters approved him as vaguely 
 clever, and his companions as vaguely a good 
 sportsman. Both remarked his willingness. His 
 house-master preserved about him the silence which 
 anticipates a future credit to the establishment, but 
 cautioned his wife against spoiling. She trusted 
 that she knew better than that, and at tea with 
 the Head's wife, spoke of Tracy as " a cheerful 
 little soul." 
 
 The inevitable bout of homesickness was late, 
 short and severe. It came after the trying day 
 following the mid-term holiday, when George, be- 
 ing absorbed in recent memories of a visit to a 
 " British village " of cave-dwellings up on the 
 moor, got into difficulties with his class-master. 
 That night he dreamed of the Grove, and his tears 
 became the Bourne swelling in his heart and bearing
 
 86 THE CATFISH 
 
 him on until the dark gesture of the tall fir-trees 
 turned to the shadow of his mother's face on the 
 wall, forgotten until now, and he awoke crying, 
 "Mother, mother!" Through the long hours he 
 lay haunted by dear memories of Bourneside, and 
 rose exhausted to a gray, featureless, unfriendly sea 
 and the white mocking of the bar at the mouth of 
 the estuary. 
 
 For the next few days he crawled at work and 
 play in a loud confusing world of pitiless men and 
 boys, with a heart that seemed swollen to bursting 
 with all he had ever loved. Misery culminated in 
 a headache that made work impossible and put him 
 into the hands of women. The next day he was 
 violently sick, and in the recovery he found himself 
 remorsefully keen to take hold of his difficulties 
 again. It was as if he had finally shed a self until 
 now only kept in abeyance by the novelty of his 
 surroundings and waiting its chance to give him 
 trouble; and thereafter St. Piran's, with all that 
 concerned it of pleasures or pains, became his pride, 
 and he thought of Bourneside with affection, it is 
 true, but chiefly as the place where he might pres- 
 ently swagger about St. Piran's. 
 
 The holidays found him the complete schoolboy 
 perhaps a little more consciously so than the
 
 THE CATFISH 87 
 
 schoolboy generally is. He was the schoolboy by 
 conviction; glad to go home, glad at the prospect 
 of coming back, gladdest of all in the company 
 of grown boys, wearing the same badge as he 
 wore, as far as Barstow. His father would see 
 them and recognize them for his colleagues. 
 
 His father met him at Barstow, and with ad- 
 mirable tact remembered not to kiss him until the 
 train had borne his colleagues away. His father's 
 manner to him was affectionately respectful; and 
 George said, to encourage him, " I see you've got 
 the same pony." 
 
 " Yes, we haven't changed much," said his 
 father modestly, as he took the reins from the boy 
 who had looked after the trap, and George felt by 
 comparison all the wonderful changes that had 
 taken place in himself. 
 
 For the first three miles of their drive they were 
 able to keep up their respective positions of stay-at- 
 home and returning hero, because there was noth- 
 ing in the roads to awaken associations, but when 
 they had passed the railway station that was the 
 Bourneside approach to Barstow, and the long 
 white road with its heavy elms lay before them, 
 George nestled in close to his father and said: 
 
 " It is nice to be coming home."
 
 88 THE CATFISH 
 
 His father changed hands with the reins and 
 put his left arm about him with a firm pressure 
 that brought back the mixture of love, reverence 
 and fear that was George's natural feeling to- 
 ward him. 
 
 Secure in his father's arm, he was able to play 
 the friendly critic to each succeeding feature of 
 his old world as it welcomed him: the church on 
 its far Down, the Camp, and the trees that formed 
 the upper edge of the Grove. Even when, sitting 
 a little closer to his father, he heard the diapason 
 of the Waterfall, and his whole nature responded, 
 as roof -timbers to the pedal-note of an organ, he 
 was able to say to himself: 
 
 " There you are, Old Growler." 
 
 The Waterfall nodded to him across the fields 
 as they ran down and up the gentle dip in the 
 road, and then the long wall of the Garden, with 
 its turreted angle, reached out to him, and he was 
 in his mother's arms. 
 
 He found himself responding to her with a free- 
 dom that delighted him. After all, there was 
 nothing between them. He could not see that, 
 glad as she was to hold him, she was still a little 
 disappointed. His very demonstrativeness, frank 
 and free as it was, proved that the boy she held
 
 THE CATFISH 89 
 
 in her arms was not the boy who had gone away. 
 He only noticed that as she pushed back the hair 
 from his forehead and said, " You've grown," she 
 smiled rather wistfully. 
 
 The effect of the holidays was to establish a 
 whole series of new relations with the people he 
 loved. He approached them with the pull of old 
 associations it is true, but from a new standpoint. 
 He now recognized in them qualities that he had 
 only felt before. His regard for his mother was 
 now mainly protective; he seemed to realize for 
 the first time that she was a small, rather timid 
 woman, and that she was beginning to look old. 
 He found himself calling her " little mother." 
 It was now he who proposed the evening walk at 
 the top end of the Garden, he who moved proudly, 
 while she, a little more bent than he remembered, 
 hung on his arm. The broad hat and the red cloak 
 he claimed as a right. There was no longer any 
 risk of embarrassment; she took what he gave 
 gratefully, and it was only in an occasional silence 
 between them that he felt the moving of an old 
 curiosity. 
 
 His father had emerged from old conceptions 
 with triumphant clearness and solidity. George 
 now understood, as he had only surmised before,
 
 90 THE CATFISH 
 
 that his father was a remarkable man. Exactly 
 wherein his remarkableness lay he could not have 
 said, but it was expressed in the effect of a deep 
 foundation. Compared with his father, the much 
 cleverer masters at school, and the neighbors, 
 whom George was now able to regard with detach- 
 ment, struck him as jerry-built. Sometimes he 
 thought of his father as like the old Norse heroes. 
 It was the nature of the soil that his father was 
 rooted in, and from which he drew his nourish- 
 ment, that baffled George. By this time he knew 
 that it was not wealth; so far from controlling all 
 the money in the world, the bank was relatively a 
 small affair. Nor, seriously and energetically as 
 his father pursued the business of the bank, did 
 George believe that it was the bank that morally 
 supported him. Whatever it was, it enabled him 
 to be firm, deliberate and comparatively silent; 
 other people might run about, but he sat still and 
 smiled, not craftily nor sardonically, but with the 
 effect of one who knows. 
 
 As if George's report from school had given him 
 the assurance he needed in a region that he did not 
 pretend to understand, his father began to hint at 
 his purpose regarding him. 
 
 " I hope you will do well at school, my boy,"
 
 THE CATFISH 91 
 
 he said one Sunday afternoon, as together they 
 examined for wasps the nectarines on the high 
 wall of the Garden. " Old Walter has done very 
 well for what he is to be." 
 
 George would have liked to ask his father what 
 he meant him to be, but he knew that a direct 
 question would be useless. 
 
 " You see," his father went on, " different people 
 have different powers. You can only work with 
 your head, and that takes longer. We want men 
 with heads." 
 
 It was tantalizing, but George was now too keen 
 about school to bother much about his ultimate 
 destiny. He suspected something to do with 
 politics. He could not have said exactly why, but 
 though his father did not talk much about politics, 
 George felt, somehow, that he was a practical part 
 of them. 
 
 He believed that his father was thinking about 
 politics, now, as they walked arm in arm up the 
 Garden. They passed through the door into the 
 Orchard, and, after looking into the cowshed, went 
 to the low wall which divided the Orchard from the 
 two fields. From here they could see the Water- 
 fall away down on the right, and the Grove lying 
 beyond.
 
 92 THE CATFISH 
 
 His father leaned on the wall with folded arms, 
 and said: 
 
 " I'm thinking of buying that field of Gardi- 
 ner's." 
 
 This, except for a scrap of orchard where the 
 ground rose, was continuous with the Bourneside 
 fields, and for nearly half a mile covered the whole 
 space between the Barstow road and the Grove. 
 George was interested, and he said: 
 " Shall you buy the Grove, too ? " 
 His father looked at him amusedly and said : 
 "I don't think so. What good would it be?" 
 George could only say: " It's a jolly place." 
 " Anyhow," said his father, " it's not settled yet. 
 Gardiner wants rather a lot." 
 
 As they moved away and walked down the 
 Orchard to tea, George was thinking that his father's 
 deep foundation must be in land. He remembered 
 scraps of family history. For generations in an- 
 other county the Tracys had owned land; it was 
 only during his father's early manhood that they 
 had lost it. He decided that when he was a 
 man he, too, would own land, and for the first time 
 he looked at Bourneside with a possessive eye. 
 Always the back of the house, commanded by the 
 higher ground of the Orchard, struck him as
 
 THE CATFISH 93 
 
 pleasanter than the front. It got the afternoon 
 sun, and there were four friendly gables with warm 
 red roofs between, instead of the long, ivied, many- 
 windowed face, with its unbroken line of gray roof. 
 When he was a man he would make more of the 
 back of the house. 
 
 The new sense of possession, that Bourneside 
 belonged to them, gave bottom to his holidays and 
 enhanced the brisk activities of school to which he 
 would presently return. It was a good world. Of 
 his father's conversation, however, the words that 
 stuck in his mind were: "Old Walter." They 
 seemed so true. In his eighteenth year, Walter, 
 who had been rather a troublesome boy, was 
 curiously sobered. He seemed to recognize his 
 humdrum responsibilities and cheerfully to accept 
 them. George looked up to him more than ever. 
 His awed observation of the big fellows at St. 
 Piran's told him that Walter, though not clever, 
 was made of better stuff than most of them, and he 
 often wished that Walter could be there. But 
 Walter was quite happy at the grammar school, 
 where he had only another year to go. Then he 
 was going into the bank, and apparently he wished 
 no other fate. 
 
 The change in Amelia was not less remarkable.
 
 94 THE CATFISH 
 
 She had become amazingly cheeky. She was now 
 a weekly boarder at a school in Cleeve Miss 
 Arnold having left before George went to St. 
 Piran's. The high school movement was just be- 
 ginning with the discovery or the recognition that 
 girls are a sort of boy, and Amelia was an aggres- 
 sive disciple. She and George spent most of their 
 time in ragging. From what George could make 
 out, it was Amelia who was running Bourneside. 
 At school she had come in contact with the 
 daughters of neighbors with whom the Tracys had 
 not previously been on visiting terms, and the 
 social horizon had extended. The death of the 
 Archery Club, through over-exclusiveness, had 
 given the opportunity for a rectification of social 
 values, with the advantage of new blood, by means 
 of tennis. Mrs. Tracy was a member of the Tennis 
 Club, though, of course, she did not play. Thus, 
 by natural evolution, mistakes were being repaired, 
 with no reproach to anybody for neglect. George 
 could see that, for the sake of her children, his 
 mother was glad of the better standing. His 
 father simply did not care, though he had been 
 wheedled by Amelia into the promise of tennis- 
 courts at the nearer end of the Orchard, the Lawn 
 not being big enough. The trees were to be cut
 
 THE CATFISH 95 
 
 down this autumn. As for croquet, it was too 
 recently dead for the dream of revival. 
 
 There was one change that was too big for all 
 its implications to be taken in at once. The Mark- 
 hams were gone. George could not make up his 
 mind whether to be glad or sorry. Of course he 
 missed Eleanor and Rose; but he doubted if they 
 made the proper atmosphere for a schoolboy. 
 Eleanor, in particular, was too nearly connected 
 with what he now thought of as the world of child- 
 hood. It was Eleanor Markham who had been 
 responsible for Mary Festing, whom he sometimes 
 remembered with irritation. He felt that, in 
 schoolboy language, he owed her one. The Mark- 
 hams had been succeeded by the Mostyns, whose 
 three children were of negligible ages, the eldest 
 being five. Mr. Mostyn was emphatically a man. 
 He smoked the strongest tobacco in the largest 
 pipes and when he was not in cassock, wore the 
 roughest clothes knickerbockers and a Norfolk 
 jacket with the belt flying wide that George 
 had ever smelt or seen. He talked in a loud voice 
 about beer, and was always appearing from some- 
 where unexpected with, "Now, you men!" or 
 " Now, you boys ! " George felt that Mr. Mostyn 
 liked being a man as he liked being a schoolboy.
 
 96 THE CATFISH 
 
 It surprised him to find Mr. Mostyn on shoutingly 
 friendly terms with his father. He understood 
 that Mr. Mostyn greatly admired his father. The 
 fact was natural, but from what George could 
 make out the reason appeared to be that his father 
 never went to church. He heard Mr. Mostyn say 
 to his father : " We want more men like you," 
 which, though reasonable in the abstract, was un- 
 expected in the particular. 
 
 At their first meeting Mr. Mostyn showed George 
 pretty plainly that he would stand no nonsense. 
 He addressed him as, " Well, young feller ! " and 
 went on to say that he supposed they were a 
 lot of old women at St. Piran's. Walter and he 
 were on the most familiar terms, and Walter said 
 that he was " no end of a chap." George could 
 quite believe that. In church he did not think he 
 liked Mr. Mostyn. The new vicar was said to 
 have improved the singing, but he seemed to have 
 taken the thrill out of the organ and the color out 
 of the windows as well. In the petitions of the 
 litany, George was half expecting Mr. Mostyn to 
 say: "And be jolly quick about it." He sur- 
 mised that Mr. Mostyn would make things lively in 
 Heaven probably get the angels to play cricket. 
 Mrs. Mostyn was beautifully dressed. She lay on
 
 THE CATFISH 97 
 
 the sofa a good deal, sang in French, and called 
 her husband " Swipes ". Amelia said that she was 
 artistic. 
 
 With so many new interests, George was not 
 very much alone. He still had his own affairs, but 
 he seemed to be looking at them from outside and 
 above. His pilgrimages to favorite haunts were 
 mainly for the purpose of comparison. The new 
 sense of possession made an enormous difference 
 to his feelings. Before, he had belonged to the 
 Bourne; now, in a sense, the Bourne, or part of 
 it, belonged to him. The Waterfall had not lost 
 its power to thrill him, but he could address it 
 aloud as " Old Growler " ; the Grove still held a 
 mystery, but he already saw it with a possessive 
 eye, as one might think of a family ghost. When 
 he went to the Camp he still felt the confidence of 
 dead Romans under his feet, but in the interval 
 he had seen a British village, and he knew now 
 that the Camp was " comparatively modern " ; and 
 beyond the shining pathway of the Severn he saw 
 the leaping of the Atlantic. 
 
 On one of his excursions he met Tom Burchell. 
 At the recognition from afar on a lonely road, both 
 boys began to walk a little stiff-legged. George 
 was prepared to fight if necessary, but he had lit-
 
 98 THE CATFISH 
 
 tie hope of licking Tom in cold blood. Tom 
 looked heavier than ever, while George, though he 
 had grown, was thinner than before, and at the 
 moment, tired with walking. But from a dozen 
 yards, Tom called out : " Hullo, Tracy ! " 
 
 The name itself implied respect, and George an- 
 swered gladly: "Hullo, Burchell!" They shook 
 hands, and Tom turned in George's direction. 
 George would have liked to say that he was sorry 
 for having lost his temper the last time they met, 
 but he was afraid that it would seem like swagger- 
 ing, and it was Tom who said : 
 
 " I say, it served me right." 
 
 " I was a silly kid," said George. 
 
 " No, you weren't," said Tom ; " but I don't 
 know how you did it." 
 
 " Nor do I," said George honestly. 
 
 " Of course," said Tom, " I ought to have 
 known that you wanted it for a specimen. I'm 
 going to be a doctor." 
 
 George let the misconception go, and for the 
 rest of the walk they talked about what Tom called 
 science, which gave him the right advantage. 
 Afterward George found that Tom's misconcep- 
 tion about the flower bothered him a little. Not 
 because he wanted to explain, but because it re-
 
 THE CATFISH 99 
 
 minded him that he had lost something. Undoubt- 
 edly the queer feelings excited by the flower had 
 some practical value, or he couldn't have licked 
 Tom in the strength of them.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IT was on his return to St. Piran's that George 
 made the first real friendship of his life. 
 Until now other people had adopted him. Among 
 his new housemates was a little Irish boy, Miles 
 Darragh, a few months younger than himself. 
 Directly he saw Miles, George recognized in him 
 something that belonged to his own world. Miles 
 was very pale and delicate-looking, with appre- 
 hensive gray eyes, and he spoke in a low quivering 
 voice. Evidently he was confused and frightened 
 by his new surroundings, though he bore himself 
 with a curious dignity. 
 
 The last, however, did not preserve him from 
 the usual attentions, and in the aimless half-hour 
 after tea he was subjected to some gentle ragging. 
 Leaning against a desk, with his hands behind him, 
 Miles answered politely the questions put to him, 
 but, as George recognized, with more candor than 
 the occasion deserved. His father, it appeared, 
 was dead, but had been a soldier. Sympathetic, 
 but kept from interfering, not by the fear of 
 
 100
 
 THE CATFISH 101 
 
 physical consequences, but by the disinclination to 
 give himself away, George appreciated the deli- 
 cacy that kept the boys from asking Miles any 
 questions about his mother. She might be dead, 
 too. George wanted to tell the new boy not to be 
 so simple, but, at the same time, he was conscious 
 of a queer wish to see him humiliated. It was 
 very like the feeling which had made him want to 
 insult Mary Festing. 
 
 From questions about his home though Irish 
 by birth, Miles now lived in Cornwall the boys 
 passed to his attainments. What did he know 
 about Latin? 
 
 " I know Latin," said Miles quietly. 
 
 The statement made a sensation; but before any- 
 body could think of a rough test for what it was 
 worth, the inevitable blockhead rushed at it with: 
 
 "Well, how does Latin begin?" 
 
 Only George laughed, and while he was wonder- 
 ing why nobody else did, the new boy said very 
 gravely : 
 
 " Latin begins with Amor." 
 
 This time everybody laughed with relief at the 
 exposure of the preposterous claim, and somebody 
 said mockingly: 
 
 " And what does Amor mean? "
 
 102 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Love," said the new boy in his quivering tones. 
 George felt his cheeks flame, and that made him 
 hostile. It was as if the new boy were an in- 
 former. The others were now in full cry for sport, 
 and one said: 
 
 "Who taught you Latin?" 
 
 " My mother," breathed the boy. 
 
 George felt that he hated him, with the cruel hate 
 of jealousy. He recognized all the confidence he 
 could not achieve with his own mother, dearly as 
 he loved her, and when the other boys began to 
 mimic their victim he joined in, as much to wound 
 himself as to tease the white-faced child, who bore 
 the mocking with sorrowful though tearless eyes 
 and trembling lips. 
 
 In the night George heard Miles crying in his 
 bed, and he covered his own head with the clothes 
 to shut out the vision of his mother's shadow on 
 the wall. He wanted to call out angrily, " Shut 
 up! " Why couldn't they let him alone, these peo- 
 ple who anguished his heart? But when all was 
 quiet he had to get softly out of bed to peer at the 
 sharply-cut profile of the new boy. 
 
 For the next few days George watched the new 
 boy with jealous eyes. As far as possible, he 
 avoided contact with him, and when it was neces-
 
 THE CATFISH 103 
 
 sary to speak he was curt to rudeness. All the time 
 he knew that if any attempt had been made to 
 bully the new boy he would have rushed to his 
 aid in fury. Fortunately, however, Darragh was 
 let alone. His dignified behavior under ragging 
 had made a good impression, and though it was 
 at once evident that he was hopeless at cricket, he 
 was a splendid swimmer. His astonishment at be- 
 ing cautioned against going out too far was too 
 genuine to be mistaken for " side ". As might have 
 been expected, his unhealthy claim to Latin would 
 not bear official investigation; it was admitted that 
 he was remarkably fluent for his age, but with 
 some general and not unhumorous remarks upon 
 the female tendency to ignore construction in the 
 zeal for language, he was put into the same form 
 with George. 
 
 The latter did his best to keep down what he 
 felt to be an unwholesome curiosity about the new 
 boy, but it was no good. Meeting Darragh alone 
 in the playing-field with a book, he stopped and 
 said awkwardly : 
 
 " I say, kid, let's be friends." 
 
 " I will be glad," said Darragh simply. 
 
 "What's that rot?" said George, indicating the 
 book.
 
 104 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Treasure Island/' said Darragh. " Have you 
 read it?" 
 
 George had, but he was not going to give him- 
 self away, so he growled : 
 
 " Not me. I hate reading." 
 
 " I expect you've read too many books," said 
 Darragh, with a twinkle in his large gray eyes. 
 George rolled a reproving glance upon him and 
 said: 
 
 " None of your cheek. But I used to be rather 
 a sappy kid when I was at home," he added 
 grandly. 
 
 Darragh asked him where he lived, and that 
 gave George an opportunity to confirm for his 
 own benefit his detached regard for his " people ". 
 Them and the landscape he sketched with tolerant 
 phrases. All the time he was hoping that Darragh 
 would talk about his mother; but Darragh, though 
 he mentioned her name, did not volunteer any in- 
 formation about her, except that she was not very 
 well off. Darragh's mother lived between Bos- 
 castle and Tintagel. He had no brothers nor 
 sisters, and except for an occasional visit to London 
 with his mother, had never been away from home 
 before. 
 
 At first, George's adoption of Darragh was
 
 THE CATFISH 105 
 
 probably a disadvantage rather than an advantage 
 to the latter, since George was inclined to trail his 
 coat on the younger boy's account. But that soon 
 passed, and Darragh took his own place in the 
 school. He was just too different from his com- 
 panions to irritate them. It was almost as if 
 he had been a girl. The effect of the friendship 
 upon George was curious, and from, his point of 
 view extremely comfortable. What began as a 
 self -protecting pose quickly became a habit. 
 Finding in Darragh, in an extravagantly consistent 
 form, what he took to be weaknesses in himself, 
 he reacted in the opposite direction and cultivated 
 a man-of-the-world attitude. On the other hand, 
 when he wanted to indulge himself, he could al- 
 ways do so vicariously by getting Darragh to talk. 
 Little by little he was externalizing in the person 
 of Darragh the self that bothered him; it did not 
 cease to develop, but he was relieved of its growing- 
 pains. If Darragh saw through him, he was wiser 
 or craftier than George's mother, Eleanor Markham 
 and Mary Festing, and hero-worshiped George to 
 the top of his bent in the qualities he affected. At 
 the back of his mind George knew that Darragh 
 belonged to the same dangerous class as his mother, 
 Eleanor Markham and Mary Festing, but he could
 
 io6 THE CATFISH 
 
 be rude to Darragh as he could not be to them. 
 
 The first common interest that they discovered, 
 or, rather, that George confessed, was that of land- 
 scape. Darragh had a great love for the country 
 of his adoption, and George at once recognized that 
 it was inspired by the same sort of feelings as was 
 his own passion for the place he called " home ". 
 It had very little to do with natural advantages, 
 and still less with what is ordinarily called romance. 
 Indeed it was the boredom excited in both boys 
 by a book of Cornish legends urged upon them by 
 Mr. Lambert, the house-master, that first led them 
 to talk about the subject. As George said, " Any- 
 body could make up truer stories any day." What 
 had happened was not nearly so real as what might 
 happen. Though, as Darragh pointed out, it wasn't 
 so much what might happen as what things meant: 
 the sulky way the hills at the back of Forth 
 Enys lumped along to the Land's End; the sudden 
 woods of ash-trees in the valleys; the stealthy turns 
 of the road from Forth Enys to Porthlew, the 
 magic of the Mount in gray weather. 
 
 Then there were all the ancient monuments: 
 cromlechs, " Merry Maidens," beehive huts, the 
 Men Scryfa and the Men-an-tol. The stories 
 about them, scientific and popular, were, of course,
 
 THE CATFISH 107 
 
 entertaining; but they didn't say what they meant 
 now. What was old Carn Galva up to? George 
 and Darragh said something of the sort to Mr. 
 Lambert on a conducted excursion to the British 
 village on the flank of Castle-an-Dinas. He said 
 that they had no imagination. All the way home 
 they annoyed him by keeping up a sort of anti- 
 phon : " Chysauster ! " in a boggy tone from 
 George, and " Carnaquidden ! " in a scrambling run 
 from Darragh. Mr. Lambert told them not to be 
 silly. 
 
 With regard to Cornwall, George was, of course, 
 only the enthusiastic amateur, but in Darragh he 
 found the soil in which to plant his eagerly- 
 formed impressions. It was Darragh, too, who 
 made clear to him why he was bothered by the 
 Bourne. Darragh hoped to become an artist. His 
 drawings and paintings, elementary as they were, 
 told George " in a minute " that they began to 
 say what Darragh felt about Cornwall. They were 
 as different from George's own explanatory ex- 
 ercises as they were from the tittle-tattle about the 
 Waterfall which had decided him not to become an 
 artist. He knew now that he was right, but for 
 a different reason from the one he had supposed. 
 He couldn't say what he felt with a brush or pencil.
 
 io8 THE CATFISH 
 
 It astonished him that the school drawing-master 
 commended his work more than Darragh's ; an art- 
 ist from the colony in Forth Enys, who came upon 
 them sketching, evidently knew better. 
 
 George began to understand that one reason why 
 places like the Waterfall and the Grove bothered 
 him was because he had no way of getting out of 
 him what he felt about them. Darragh seemed to 
 have all sorts of ways of saying what he felt 
 about things. He was not, with people in general, 
 communicative, but he was never embarrassed. He 
 was able to say words like " mother " and " love " 
 out loud, with evidently a full sense of their mean- 
 ing, but without blushing. Often George felt the 
 return of his anger against Darragh for his facility. 
 The anger was partly caused by envy, partly by 
 fear; he was afraid of what Darragh might say next. 
 There were days when he exaggerated his man-of- 
 the-world attitude to the point of brutality, and 
 outraged himself in order to hurt his companion. 
 Darragh would bear him in silence, and then George 
 would say furiously: 
 
 " Yes, you think you understand me." 
 Darragh did not make any such claim. His ad- 
 miration for George was genuine, because it was 
 that of the simple for the complex character.
 
 THE CATFISH 109 
 
 Knowing what he could do and what he wanted 
 to do, Darragh made light of his own gifts, and 
 regarded with superstitious veneration the unde- 
 fined possibilities of his friend. The effect upon 
 George was that Darragh expected something great 
 of him, but would not say what it was. 
 
 The effect was increased by their comparative 
 progress in school. From the master's point of 
 view Darragh was a simple proposition. On the 
 purely literary side he was far in advance of his 
 age; while in mathematics, as in games, he was too 
 blessedly incapable to be bothered about. The most 
 that could be hoped of him in these activities was 
 the minimum to keep his place in the school. The 
 only regret was that his artistic talent absorbed the 
 ambition which might have made him a shining 
 classic. 
 
 George, on the other hand, was anybody's game. 
 He seemed to be able to do anything, but not one 
 thing better than another. Since he was not yet 
 far enough advanced to betray his natural limita- 
 tions in any particular subject, this made him a 
 temptation to rivalry among his masters. He was 
 a dark horse. The impression he got was that his 
 masters were " at him " rather unfairly. 
 
 As yet George was too keen about the life of
 
 no THE CATFISH 
 
 school to suffer more than this immediate incon- 
 venience of his undefined possibilities. There were 
 many years before he need make up his mind what 
 he wanted to do. The effect of trying to please 
 everybody was to develop his less native powers and 
 to make him feel more and more at home in what 
 he had been used to regard as the world of make- 
 believe. For the world of reality, with its dis- 
 turbing hopes and fears, there was always Darragh ; 
 and Darragh's more placid and complete existence 
 therein kept George from feeling a pretender in the 
 other. 
 
 The companionship of Darragh during the win- 
 ter term deepened and extended George's more 
 conscious love of nature, without the misgivings that 
 come from old associations. All his roots were in 
 a different landscape. At this time of the year the 
 characteristics of his new surroundings were at their 
 most pronounced and most enchanting. The hills 
 deepened in color; the air was moist and full of 
 strange odors; and nightly the bay, visible from 
 the dormitory windows, was jeweled with lights of 
 the herring fleet under the shepherding of the beam 
 that flashed in answer to the calling of the buoy. 
 With greater familiarity the effect of urgency had 
 passed, and the rhythm of life was deep and steady
 
 THE CATFISH in 
 
 enough to give time for dreaming. And always 
 there was Darragh, with the land in his heart, to 
 interpret the impression of the moment. 
 
 For active enjoyment there was the novelty of 
 football, with its infinite possibilities to the begin- 
 ner who had a hopeless duffer for contrast. Dar- 
 ragh was not wanting in pluck, but he simply could 
 not play games. Then there were the long even- 
 ings, with Darragh to insinuate the congenial book. 
 George's pose about " hating reading " had not for 
 a moment deceived his younger companion, and 
 Darragh, with a wider knowledge of books, seemed 
 to know by instinct what George would like. They 
 did not always agree about books, George being 
 still keen about mere information and " the way 
 things were done " ; but they both liked Wordsworth 
 and Tennyson. George found in them a response 
 to his own feelings about nature, while Darragh 
 had already begun to appreciate poetry for its own 
 sake. 
 
 It was the same with music. Darragh could play 
 the piano a little, and had for his age a wide ac- 
 quaintance with the works of the great composers. 
 He would spend hours at the piano in the cold half- 
 lighted class-room, picking out from memory frag- 
 ments of pieces that his mother played, and George,
 
 ii2 THE CATFISH 
 
 who had no inclination to learn to play, was never 
 tired of listening to him. One day Darragh fin- 
 gered out a few bars of music that was different 
 in kind from any music that George had ever heard. 
 
 It seemed not to have been made, but to come out 
 
 \ 
 
 of nature, as if the hills were speaking. George 
 eagerly asked what it was, and Darragh said, in a 
 tone of awe, " Beethoven.'' The name meant noth- 
 ing to George, but he made Darragh play the pas- 
 sage over and over again, and it haunted him for 
 days. Over the dinner-table he would silently 
 mouth at Darragh, " Beethoven," as if the name 
 were a secret password between them. In after 
 years George learned that the haunting passage, 
 deep down on the piano, was the theme of the vari- 
 ations in the Sonata Appassionato,. 
 
 In spite of his greater facility of expression and 
 at least equal intelligence, Darragh deferred to 
 George in almost everything. He seemed to rec- 
 ognize in him some general power that was above 
 all talents, and his attitude sometimes reminded 
 George of his own toward his father. 
 
 At Christmas George went home full of Darragh. 
 He had already spoken of him in letters to his 
 mother, of course; but George's power of conveying 
 information on paper had not yet developed beyond
 
 THE CATFISH 113 
 
 the stage of, " There is a new boy called Miles 
 Darragh. He is a nice boy, and I like him." Now 
 he talked about Darragh in and out of season. 
 Walter and Amelia professed to be bored, but their 
 mother encouraged George to talk about his friend. 
 If he had only known, he was giving more of 
 himself away than he had ever done before. There- 
 fore his mother smiled, though still rather wistfully, 
 \vhile she listened. It is the common fate of 
 mothers to get their confidences at second hand. 
 
 That Christmas George learned quite a lot about 
 his father. Gardiner's field had been bought, and 
 George was now convinced that his father derived 
 his moral support from land. It was as if he were 
 making provision against a siege. As they walked 
 up the new field, George felt that his father was 
 looking far ahead at a troubled horizon very 
 much as a Roman sentinel might have looked from 
 the Camp at the debatable marches of the Severn. 
 Politics to George was still only a matter of Blue 
 and Yellow. He knew that his father was strongly 
 Blue, or Conservative; but he got the impression 
 that he was angry with his own side. What he 
 said about neighboring landowners made George 
 think of Esau and the mess of pottage. He did 
 not know exactly what pottage was, but he knew
 
 ii4 THE CATFISH 
 
 that his father was not a sneak, like Jacob. George 
 believed that his father did not want land for him- 
 self, but to take care of it. He seemed to recognize 
 some duty to the land that other people did not, 
 though he only talked to George about the rotation 
 of crops. 
 
 For the first week or two after he got back to 
 St. Piran's George was a little worried about not 
 knowing what he was going to be. He thought 
 that perhaps he ought to hurry up, in case his father 
 wanted him, and for a time the calling of the buoy 
 was urgent. In his dreams it got mixed up with 
 the voice of his father. But as the regular interests 
 of school got hold of him again the mood passed, 
 and then there was a new excitement to look for- 
 ward to. 
 
 Mrs. Darragh wanted him to spend the Easter 
 holidays with Miles. George wrote to his mother 
 for permission. She gave it willingly, but one sen- 
 tence in her letter puzzled him a little: "I like 
 you to make friends, because then I know that you 
 are happy." George would have said that you made 
 friends in order to become happy, but he was in 
 no mood for metaphysics, and then it became a 
 matter of counting the days.
 
 THE CATFISH 115 
 
 It was not until a few weeks before Easter that 
 George thought of asking Darragh: 
 
 "Will anybody be there?" 
 
 " I expect Mary Festing will be there," said Dar- 
 ragh. 
 
 The name sounded so natural on his lips that 
 for a moment George forgot to be astonished. 
 Then he felt disturbed. He hoped that Mary Fest- 
 ing would not have told Mrs. Darragh about the 
 row in the nursery at Bourneside. It occurred to 
 him that perhaps Mrs. Darragh might have written 
 to his mother and said that Mary Festing would be 
 there. He suspected a trap, and said rudely: 
 
 " Bother Mary Festing! " 
 
 " She's not like other girls," said Darragh mildly. 
 
 " No, that's the worst of it," said George gloom- 
 ily, and then Darragh stared at him and said: 
 
 " Why, do you know Mary Festing? " 
 
 George felt himself beginning to blush, but he 
 said carelessly: 
 
 " Oh, she stopped with some people we know. 
 I thought her " - he searched for a word sufficiently 
 remote from his feelings " stuck up." 
 
 Darragh began to laugh. 
 
 " I'll tell her that," he said.
 
 u6 THE CATFISH 
 
 " If you do I'll punch your head," said George 
 furiously, and then added : " But I don't care." 
 
 Darragh told him not to get shirty about a girl. 
 
 " She's not at all a bad sort, really," he said, 
 "and, anyhow, she'll be with my mother most of 
 the time." 
 
 George remembered his manners and said no 
 more, but he was half sorry that he had promised 
 to go. Exactly what his grievance against Mary 
 Festing was he could not have said. It was as if 
 she made some sort of claim upon him. 
 
 " Anyhow," he thought, " I'll soon show her that 
 I've grown up," and for the rest of the term he 
 remembered to be a man of the world with all his 
 might. 
 
 But when breaking-up day actually came, Mary 
 Festing was only an infinitesimal part of the minor 
 apprehensions which, mingling with George's de- 
 light at the prospect of sharing his holidays with 
 Darragh in Cornwall, reduced him to his proper 
 and attractive self as a rather bashful guest. The 
 journey up through Cornwall, the country growing 
 greener as they traveled eastward, as if they were 
 meeting the spring, with Darragh to explain inci- 
 dents by the way, the Druid-haunted hill of Carn 
 Brea, the Cathedral growing up in hollow Truro,
 
 THE CATFISH 117 
 
 and the unexpected sea on the right, between St. 
 Austell and Par, was the very best preparation; 
 and by the time they reached Camelford, George 
 was nearer to his own world than he had been for 
 some time. 
 
 Consequently he found himself shaking hands 
 with Mrs. Darragh and Mary Festing on the plat- 
 form at Camelford, without any settled plan of 
 behavior. Before he remembered to be on guard, 
 he found it wasn't necessary. He had never been 
 so taken for granted ; never so easily come home. 
 Mrs. Darragh was just what he expected: tall, slen- 
 der and gray-haired, with Miles' clear-cut features 
 and low quivering voice. He had never met any- 
 body so entirely without curiosity. Talking to her 
 was like resuming a conversation begun in a dream. 
 He would have known Mary by her eyes. She was 
 now a lanky girl of about fifteen. George doubted 
 if she really remembered him, though she said, 
 " Oh, yes," when Mrs. Darragh said, " You know 
 George, of course." 
 
 During the two-mile drive in a little wagonette, 
 or " Jersey car," on a high road, over flat feature- 
 less country, with a gray wall of sea in front and 
 Rough Tor and Brown Willy behind, Miles and 
 Mary ragged in the healthiest manner, while Mrs.
 
 n8 THE CATFISH 
 
 Darragh talked to George about King Arthur's 
 Castle. He noticed that Mary had a trick of screw- 
 ing up her eyes when she laughed. 
 
 Presently they turned aside, and with a groaning 
 of brakes, descended a hill into a wooded valley 
 with a hidden stream. Directly he heard the 
 stream George knew that he was going to be happy. 
 Compared with the Bourne, it was like a person 
 without a history; capricious, maybe, but innocent 
 of any deeper meaning. When he saw the stream 
 it was clear to the bed, with mock pools and glanc- 
 ing runs. 
 
 At a little bridge they got down from the Jersey 
 car and carried their bags up to a small gray house 
 looking down the rocky valley that framed a tri- 
 angle of sea. To George it was like a house in 
 a fairy tale; invented, and so, for all its wood and 
 stream and vision of sea, a comment upon, rather 
 than, like Bourneside, a genuine product of the 
 soil. It was the very home of " Let's pretend." 
 
 Not that he found himself in an atmosphere of 
 make-believe. On the contrary, he had never been 
 among people who made so little distinction be- 
 tween what one felt and what one said. Over sup- 
 per they talked about books and music, and whether 
 primroses were friendlier than wood-anemones, as
 
 THE CATFISH 119 
 
 if they were the really important things, while ques- 
 tions of what to wear, and the politics of school, 
 were dismissed with a laughing word. The maid 
 who waited upon them took part in the conversation, 
 and Mrs. Darragh seemed the youngest there. 
 George had to assure himself that though he could 
 talk more easily to Mrs. Darragh, he loved his 
 mother best. 
 
 What made it all the more easy was that, while 
 his new friends took him for granted as belonging 
 to their world, they paid him just that deference 
 due to the completer schoolboy than Darragh. Even 
 if he had remembered to talk like a man of the 
 world it would not have been necessary. He was 
 taken for granted in that character as much as any 
 other. 
 
 Throughout the holidays, George was kept. on 
 the best of terms with himself. It was almost as 
 if he were the man in the house. Whatever spe- 
 cial efforts were made to entertain him were from 
 that point of view to provide him with rather 
 more active amusements than the tastes of the house- 
 hold naturally inclined to. Darragh knew a few 
 boys in Tintagel and Boscastle who were keen about 
 cricket and fishing, and young enough to appreciate 
 George's more professional training, at any rate in
 
 120 THE CATFISH 
 
 the former. For the first time in his life he was 
 regarded as a leader in athletic sports. 
 
 On the whole, however, he preferred the after- 
 noons when the Darraghs, Mary and he just " oxed 
 about " ; climbing Brown Willy and Rough Tor, ex- 
 ploring the coast, or playing at Malory among the 
 ruins of King Arthur's Castle. At the bottom of his 
 heart he knew that he did not really care about 
 cricket and fishing, and that his prowess therein 
 "would not have stood the test of his peers. It was 
 not that he wanted to show off in playing up to 
 the Darraghs' idea of him. If he had been capable 
 of analyzing his feelings, he would have known that, 
 well as he got on with Mary Festing, he still felt 
 the necessity of impressing upon her that he was 
 no longer a sappy kid. That it was necessary 
 was proved by her trying to conceal the fact that 
 she was a better swimmer than he. Not that she 
 gave any sign of remembering the incident in the 
 nursery, but it was better to be on the safe side. 
 
 Occasionally Mary said things that seemed to as- 
 sume too close an acquaintance with his private 
 motives. When he killed his first trout, while the 
 others applauded, Mary looked at him instead of 
 it and said: "You know you hate it." He un- 
 derstood her to mean the killing, and thereafter,
 
 THE CATFISH 121 
 
 though he did hate the killing, Mary's disapproval 
 of trout-fishing became the real reason for pursuing 
 it. Mary would not even eat the trout he caught, 
 and the arguments between her and Mrs. Darragh, 
 .who made no pretense of reconciling her appetite 
 .with her principles, over the breakfast-table became 
 one of their jokes. Mrs. Darragh would say 
 gravely : 
 
 " You'll riot be caring for bacon, Mary ? " 
 And Mary would answer, with perfect good- 
 humor : 
 
 "Yes, please; a lot. I never loved that pig." 
 At the bottom of his heart, George knew that 
 Mary was really the more consistent of the two, 
 though he couldn't have worked it out. 
 
 Mary interested him against his will. She was 
 full of fun in a sleepy sort of way, though generally 
 grave in her manner. At this distance of time her 
 outburst of temper seemed incredible. Even when 
 she argued she spoke quietly and in very few words. 
 Often when other people argued she said nothing, 
 but screwed up her eyes instead. George could 
 never quite believe that she was not really older 
 and wiser than Mrs. Darragh. She seemed to have 
 made up her mind about everything, though she 
 seldom volunteered an opinion. He understood
 
 122 THE CATFISH 
 
 that her parents, who had been friends of Mrs. 
 Darragh in India, now lived in London, where 
 Mary went to a day-school. It was not merely her 
 presence here for the holidays that made him sus- 
 pect that she did not get on very well with her 
 parents, though she seemed happy enough. Once 
 or twice she spoke of the Markhams, who had set- 
 tled near London. George wanted to ask her about 
 the Markhams, but decided that it was better to 
 let well alone. 
 
 His uncomfortable memories of the nursery epi- 
 sode did not prevent his whole-heartedly joining 
 in made-up games now. But that was different; 
 they were all, even Mrs. Darragh, in the same boat ; 
 there was no personal association between him and 
 Mary. Besides, he didn't invent the Round Table, 
 and the neighborhood of the Castle was irresistible. 
 It was true that all the authorities threw doubts 
 on the identity of the place, but, as George said to 
 Mrs. Darragh, " It feels like it." She laughed and 
 said, " Stick to that and you'll come out all right." 
 He did not understand what she meant, and it was 
 one of the things that made him believe that, for all 
 her childishness, Mrs. Darragh was wiser than she 
 let on to be. 
 
 Their games in the Castle, though they did not
 
 THE CATFISH 123 
 
 cause him any serious embarrassment, reminded 
 him of the necessity for keeping Mary at a distance. 
 She always wanted him to be Arthur. Not that 
 she wanted to be Guinevere; on the contrary, she 
 called Guinevere a treacherous pig, and pushed the 
 part on to Mrs. Darragh. Her notion of a heroine 
 was, as George recognized, out of perversity, Vivien, 
 or, in more sincere moments, Iseult, " because she 
 really couldn't help it." George asked why he must 
 be Arthur. " I dunno," said Mary, screwing up 
 her eyes, and biting a blade of grass, " you're like 
 him, somehow." 
 
 George declared that Arthur was a softy. He 
 would like to be Lancelot, and Mrs. Darragh said: 
 " Sure and he shall, Mary, if I have a voice in the 
 matter." At the bottom of his heart, George knew 
 that he really wanted to be Arthur, softy though 
 he undoubtedly was. Lancelot, with all his merits, 
 was a bit of a swaggerer. But George was not 
 going to let Mary see that he wanted to be Arthur, 
 and he threw himself into the part of Lancelot, 
 climbing to the most dangerous places, baring his 
 battle-writhen arms, and groaning in remorseful 
 pain, with all the more conviction because he knew 
 that Mary despised the character. 
 
 As for Miles, he was content to be anybody:
 
 124 THE CATFISH 
 
 the " moral child without the craft to rule," or 
 Galahad, or even Percival ; though Merlin's was the 
 part he really preferred, because then he and Mary, 
 as Vivien, could sharpen their wits at the expense 
 of the others. 
 
 All the time George knew that their games were 
 only a playful comment upon the real inspiration 
 of the place, and that the others had the same feel- 
 ing. The Path Perilous that joined the Head to 
 the mainland, with Merlin's cave below, and the 
 mock ruins with their postern were too good to 
 be wasted ; but real romance began when you came 
 out upon the thrift-flushed plateau of the Head, 
 where long grass quivered about the foundations of 
 a little chapel with a broken altar. 
 
 Here they instinctively dropped their bantering 
 and talked about real things. George generally 
 found himself with Mrs. Darragh, and because she 
 was not inquisitive, he gave her more of his con- 
 fidence than he knew. She was greatly interested 
 in his maps and plans. Evidently Miles had spoken 
 about them, which struck George as rather sur- 
 prising, considering that Miles was an artist. He 
 himself could not say what he " meant " by his 
 maps and plans ; he only knew that he had to make 
 them.
 
 THE CATFISH 125 
 
 One day Mrs. Darragh asked him if he ever 
 wanted to write stories. He said that he did not, 
 and tried to explain why. 
 
 " It seems so silly to make things up, when it is 
 all there, if you could only get at it." 
 
 His confidence in Mrs. Darragh was not quite 
 easy enough to let him tell her about the Bourne 
 and the Grove, but she seemed to understand what 
 he meant. 
 
 :< You mean in the feel of the place? " she said, 
 artfully using his own expression. 
 
 " Yes," he said, and went on to say that he 
 supposed the people who were able to write stories 
 didn't notice the feel of places. They could make 
 anything happen to anybody, anywhere. Though 
 very often when he was reading a story, he could 
 not help thinking that the real story was under- 
 neath, though mucked up by what was written over. 
 Like one of those old what did they call them? 
 
 " Palimpsests ? " said Mrs. Darragh. 
 
 Yes, that was the word. Mrs. Darragh thought 
 for a moment and then said: 
 
 " Some people can only live their stories." 
 
 That struck him as remarkably true. All at once 
 he thought of quite a lot of people who seemed 
 to be living their stories. His father, for example,
 
 126 THE CATFISH 
 
 about politics and the land; and his mother, when 
 she walked at the top end of the Garden, with a 
 proud head, smiling. 
 
 " It doesn't matter," said Mrs. Darragh, " so 
 long as it is their own story the one underneath." 
 
 He was afraid that she was getting at him, but 
 she went on: 
 
 " Mary is going to be a writer ; but she writes 
 poetry." 
 
 For the first time his feelings with regard to 
 Mary Festing were tinged with something like jeal- 
 ousy not of Mary, but of Miles. He could say 
 what he felt in drawing and painting; Mary in 
 poetry. They were probably doing it now on the 
 other side of the Head. How easy it must be for 
 them to get on together. It was not that he liked 
 Mary particularly, or wanted Mary to like him; 
 but it was tiresome always to be bluffing with her. 
 
 That feeling of jealousy, or rather, envy, was 
 the little drop of bitter at the end of his holidays. 
 Easily as he was taken for granted by his com- 
 panions, he felt a difference between himself and 
 them. If the word had been in his vocabulary, he 
 would have said that, compared with them, he was 
 inarticulate. 
 
 The only time when he forgot all about the
 
 THE CATFISH 127 
 
 difference was when Mrs. Darragh played in the 
 evening. Then all the barriers were swept away, 
 and he felt as if the music were speaking for him. 
 Particularly when Mrs. Darragh played Beethoven. 
 He described it to himself as the music that was 
 not made up, that came out of the ground. Some- 
 times when Mrs. Darragh played Beethoven he 
 would catch Mary looking at him out of her narrow 
 eyes. Then he always had to say something silly 
 to put her off. He still felt that he owed Mary 
 Festing one, and he knew that he would have to 
 have it out with her some day; though what about 
 he could not have said.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FOR the next year or so George's life at St. 
 Piran's was happy and uneventful. He was 
 popular with his fellows, he got his removes auto- 
 matically, and his reports continued to be encour- 
 aging. His friendship with Darragh persisted, 
 growing firmer as the differences between the two 
 boys were more clearly exposed. They could now 
 quarrel and make it up again with a tacit allowance 
 for each other's wrong-headed point of view. 
 Darragh spent a week of the Christmas holidays 
 at Bourneside, where the abject regard of the 
 household for the artistic temperament gave George 
 all the advantages of a showman; and George paid 
 a summer visit to the Darraghs, where the absence 
 of Mary Festing was both a relief and a slight 
 disappointment which he explained to himself 
 by thinking of all the clever things he might have 
 said and done to correct her mistaken idea of him. 
 Affairs at Bourneside seemed to be flourishing. 
 Mr. Tracy had been asked to become a magistrate, 
 but had declined the honor; Walter was now in 
 
 128
 
 THE CATFISH 129 
 
 the bank, and Amelia had been taken to tea with 
 the duchess. 
 
 It was on the approach of his fifteenth birthday 
 that George began to be troubled. For some rea- 
 son or other, the memories of his childhood had 
 waked up again and were stalking him. It was 
 as if the Bourne had found its way at last into the 
 Atlantic, and so into his heart again. Below the 
 calling of the buoy he heard the thunder of the 
 Waterfall; the dark tops of the fir-trees in the 
 Grove made notes of interrogation upon the sky, 
 and he was haunted by the shadow of his mother's 
 face on the wall. He had strange impulses to write 
 to his mother and tell her that he was an unworthy 
 son; but when he sat down to write he did not 
 know how to begin. 
 
 To complicate matters, he was being prepared 
 for confirmation. With an acute sense of double 
 personality, he felt that it was imperative that he 
 should choose now between one and the other. 
 Perhaps the sound of the Waterfall was the voice 
 of God, and if he chose rightly the dark tops of 
 the fir-trees would make the gesture of benediction. 
 
 But when he tried to choose there were appalling 
 difficulties. If he succumbed to the calling of his 
 old world and became as a little child again, he
 
 130 THE CATFISH 
 
 would have to renounce his father's hopes for his 
 future. It was incredible that they could be wrong 
 in themselves. The fault was his in pretending to 
 be cleverer than he was. It was not as if he had 
 not been warned. He remembered Eleanor Mark- 
 ham's dissatisfaction at the idea of his going away 
 to school; her "Be yourself, my dear boy"; his 
 mother's remark about sticking up for his ideals; 
 Mrs. Darragh's about living one's own story; and 
 even Mary Festing's narrow glance at him when 
 his heart was opened by music, all came back to 
 him with prophetic meaning. Yet he could not 
 bring himself to write: "Father, I have sinned." 
 And when he tried to put his difficulties before the 
 Head, who was preparing him for confirmation, he 
 was told that they were natural at his age, and 
 would probably disappear at his first communion. 
 
 " I may say that I am very well pleased with 
 what I hear of your work, Tracy," said the Head, 
 with benign aloofness. 
 
 George felt that they were at cross-purposes, but 
 he did not like to set up his opinion against the 
 Head's, and he went home silently hoping for the 
 best. 
 
 He was to make his first communion at Easter. 
 His preoccupied manner was naturally put down
 
 THE CATFISH 131 
 
 to the solemnity of the occasion, and everybody, 
 even his father, was particularly kind to him. 
 George would not presume to judge his father, but 
 he could not help wondering if his own troubles 
 were not partly due to the fact that his parents 
 were divided about religion. He had never heard 
 them quarrel, or even argue, about the subject, but 
 the division was there. As he walked with his 
 mother in the early morning along the road beside 
 the Bourne, below the hanging wood where, over 
 dead Romans, the dawn sang, " He is risen ! " 
 through the fir-trees, George humbly prayed that, 
 even as the noble dead were absolved by that har- 
 mony, so in time his father might be brought to 
 the altar. 
 
 When the communion drew near, and he knelt 
 between his mother and Amelia among primroses 
 at the chancel rails, George derived peculiar com- 
 fort from the masculinity of Mr. Mostyn. His 
 large boots, peeping from under his alb, were an 
 assurance that there was no essential incompati- 
 bility between the world of reality and the world 
 of affairs. Then, too, Tom Burchell was the 
 server. George tried not to notice these facts, but 
 they entered into the hope that the union, so often 
 hinted in this place, between the two sides of his
 
 I 3 2 THE CATFISH 
 
 nature might be consummated by the act of com- 
 munion. 
 
 During the interval after receiving the wafer, 
 his faculties, hypnotized by the gesture and the 
 murmured words of the priest, were in abeyance; 
 and he knelt with closed eyes, hardly daring to 
 breathe. But when he felt between his lips the 
 thin rim of the chalice, and then his tongue re- 
 sponded to the pungent flavor of the wine, he was 
 aware of a phenomenon that he hoped was not 
 profane in its associations. As a child he had 
 been shown a simple experiment in galvanism. You 
 placed a pointed piece of zinc between the upper 
 teeth and lip, and a penny on the tongue, and, at 
 the moment of contact between the two metals, 
 whether the eyes were open or closed, there was 
 a faint flash, felt rather than seen, and a sharp 
 saline taste. So now, at the moment of com- 
 munion, there was a faint flash before his closed 
 eyes, and he saw God. 
 
 The miracle had happened, and George returned 
 to his place with uplifted heart. He was one with 
 the whole creation, and he understood now that 
 his doubts and fears proceeded from the weakness 
 of his faith. Always ready to believe in the su- 
 periority of other people, he now felt that what
 
 THE CATFISH 133 
 
 he had put down to complacency on their part 
 was in reality due to knowledge. He thought with 
 humble reverence of the wise Head, and when Mr. 
 Mostyn and Tom Burchell caught up his party as 
 they moved along the high path above the vicarage 
 garden, and Mr. Mostyn began to tease Amelia 
 about her long legs, while Tom asked him what 
 he had been doing at football, he admired their 
 freedom. Coming from that mystery, on that 
 morning of all the year, they could talk lightly, be- 
 cause they were at ease in the courts of Zion. 
 
 The mood of exalted humility persisted through- 
 out the holidays. He felt like Galahad, whose 
 strength was as the strength of ten, because his 
 heart was pure. The world, that he had found 
 disturbing, was now become the garment of God. 
 He heard Him in the Waterfall, and when he 
 walked in the Grove the dark tops of the fir-trees 
 made the gesture of benediction upon the sky. It 
 was no longer necessary for him to choose between 
 the two sides of his nature; he had found the larger 
 synthesis in the love of God. 
 
 To put the finishing touch to his happiness, his 
 father now began to talk to him explicitly about 
 his future. At least explicitly as far as to make 
 George understand that his was to be what in the
 
 134 THE CATFISH 
 
 slang of the stage is called a " thinking part." The 
 immediate objective was to be the bar. Not, as 
 Mr. Tracy was careful to explain, for the more 
 practical purposes of a profession, but as a clearing- 
 house for further advancement. George had the 
 haziest notions about what one did at the bar, but 
 he thought of it as a sort of pen or enclosure > 
 something between the agricultural show and the 
 left-luggage office at Barstow station where be- 
 wigged and brilliant young men waited their turn 
 to be called as judges, cabinet ministers, ambas- 
 sadors, or colonial governors. 
 
 " But everything depends on your doing well at 
 St. Piran's and Oxford," said his father. " As you 
 know, my own education was neglected, and I don't 
 want you to be handicapped in the same way. I 
 have no particular desire for you to go to the 
 university merely for the sake of going there if 
 you understand what I mean. I should like you 
 to go up with a scholarship not so much for 
 the sake of saving money as to give you a good 
 position and I gather from the Headmaster that 
 this is well within your powers." 
 
 George said that he would work hard to gain a 
 scholarship. 
 
 " I am sure you will," said his father. " I don't
 
 THE CATFISH 135 
 
 know much about these matters, but it seems to 
 me that the whole thing is summed up in the word 
 ' distinction.' Unless a university degree really 
 carries distinction ' Honors,' I think they call it 
 - it is nothing more than a sort of social certifi- 
 cate. It is difficult to explain exactly what I mean," 
 he went on rather pathetically, " but personally I 
 would rather that a young man stood upon his own 
 merits than upon a qualification that means noth- 
 ing more than so many years at a seat of learning. 
 As for the moral discipline, gentlemen ought to be 
 made at home." 
 
 George was very much more interested when his 
 father talked about general ideas than when he 
 discussed the details of education. Young as he 
 was, he felt that his father's ideas were sounder 
 than his knowledge, and that they were more and 
 more worth listening to as the subject grew wider 
 and more difficult. 
 
 " From what I can make out," Mr. Tracy went 
 on, " we shall want all the good men we can get. 
 There are changes coming all round. I see it in 
 business, and I see it here," he indicated the land- 
 scape generally, for they were walking in the Or- 
 chard. " It is foolish to sit down and grumble. 
 There's a new race, very sharp and able, but with-
 
 136 THE CATFISH 
 
 out principles or tradition. And the people with 
 principles and tradition have become frivolous. 
 Or they scold at the newcomers like a lot of old 
 women. What we want to do is to sit tight and 
 say nothing. That is to say, most of us, leaving 
 a few picked men to skirmish in front. There's 
 a division of labor, you see. People like old Walter 
 and myself are not much good with our heads, 
 except for business, but we can hold the fort. And 
 we can supply the ammunition. However," he 
 said, with a laugh, as he tucked George's arm into 
 his, " I'm talking too much ahead. But I do want 
 you to feel, my boy," he added shyly, " that every 
 one of us owes a duty to his country." 
 
 It was all tremendously exciting to George, 
 though he could not help feeling that the part 
 which most concerned himself, about skirmishing 
 in front, was rather vague. It was true that he 
 preferred playing forward to back at football, but 
 then the ball was a definite object to go for. But 
 holding the fort conveyed a clear and inspiring 
 picture to his mind. It was what he had always 
 felt about his father, and it connected him with 
 the dead Romans upon the Camp. They also had 
 held the fort. The hint of willing sacrifice in the 
 words about supplying ammunition brought tears
 
 THE CATFISH 137 
 
 of gratitude into George's eyes, though it also re- 
 minded him of his great responsibility. He won- 
 dered if old Walter knew and acquiesced in the 
 division of labor. It comforted him to remember 
 that old Walter always preferred playing back at 
 football; he had acquired quite a reputation as a 
 goal-keeper. 
 
 Inspired by the feeling of a new harmony, and by 
 the vague though stimulating prospect of skirmish- 
 ing in front, George went back to St. Piran's and 
 flung himself into work and play with renewed 
 ardor. He was now looked upon as a boy who 
 would almost certainly do something. If he had 
 been present at the conversations in the masters' 
 common room, it might have struck him as sig- 
 nificant that, while the man responsible for each 
 part of his education expressed satisfaction with 
 his progress therein, his private opinion was that 
 Tracy's real talent was for something else. The 
 rivalry was now inverted, in the sense that each 
 man thought that the others were insufficiently 
 aware of the splendid material at their command. 
 Something of this came to George, in stray re- 
 marks and questions, and he sometimes had the 
 uncomfortable feeling that one master was using 
 him to find out something disparaging about an-
 
 138 THE CATFISH 
 
 other. This offended his notions of honor, but he 
 did not connect the circumstance with any pecul- 
 iarity in himself. 
 
 The only thing that caused him any concern was 
 a slight though increasing difference in his rela- 
 tions with Darragh. They were not less friendly 
 than before, but the development of their respec- 
 tive interests would not allow such close com- 
 panionship as formerly. Nobody bothered about 
 Darragh at work or play. He was now accepted 
 as the sort of boy who must be allowed to pass 
 through school by a series of loopholes between 
 one officially recognized activity and another. 
 From the scholastic point of view he was a failure, 
 though his general intelligence and sweet nature, 
 as well as his witty tongue and now remarkable 
 artistic talent, kept him from being despised. 
 Sometimes when George was tired, or over-excited, 
 or perplexed by what he could only regard as an 
 unwholesome curiosity on the part of the masters, 
 he envied Darragh the protective atmosphere cre- 
 ated by his one shining gift and blessed incapacity 
 in everything else. Particularly since, as time 
 went on, George began to feel that the progress 
 that kept him in the public eye was due to gen- 
 eral enthusiasm, rather than to special aptitude for
 
 THE CATFISH 139 
 
 this or that particular task. It was a sort of 
 Dutch courage that was carrying him on. 
 
 Not that he doubted the reality of his inspiration, 
 though this, again, drew him a little further from 
 Darragh. On his visits to Darragh's home, he 
 had noticed that Mrs. Darragh did not go to church, 
 but his own religious instincts being then unawak- 
 ened, he had not attached particular importance to 
 the fact. During his week at Bourneside, Darragh 
 had gone to church with the others as a matter 
 of course. It was a shock to George to learn that 
 Darragh had been brought up without any religious 
 convictions. This, perhaps, would not have per- 
 manently disturbed him if it had not been that 
 Darragh, evidently with his mother's approval, was 
 prepared to submit to the religious discipline of 
 St. Piran's, even to the length of being confirmed 
 when his turn came. He said it didn't matter. 
 
 George did not wish to judge, but he could not 
 help showing his uneasiness. He spoke bashfully 
 of the strength and the feeling of brotherhood he 
 derived from communion. 
 
 " But I feel that every time I eat bread and 
 butter," said Darragh. " I don't mean that I think 
 about it fresh every time, but the feeling is always 
 there."
 
 140 THE CATFISH 
 
 " But don't you believe in God ? " said George. 
 
 " I suppose I do," said Darragh. " I've never 
 really thought about it. My mother says that only 
 silly and priggish people want to invent another 
 word for all this, you know," for they were sit- 
 ting on the sand-hills overlooking the estuary. 
 " Like not calling yourself English because you 
 happen to be Irish," he added. 
 
 The illustration did not strike George as a very 
 good one, but he was not prepared to argue. He 
 felt that Darragh's easy pantheism was wrong 
 somewhere, but when he tried to find the weak 
 spot he could only fall back on his own limited ex- 
 perience. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if I didn't believe that it was 
 all true in just that way I don't think I could 
 keep on trying." 
 
 " No, perhaps not," said Darragh, and then 
 looked uncomfortable. 
 
 "What do you mean?" said George. 
 
 " Oh nothing," said Darragh, though, as 
 George saw, he was half inclined to unburden him- 
 self. 
 
 " Go on," said George sternly. " I don't mind 
 your beastly cheek, and, anyhow, I shall kick you 
 if vou don't."
 
 THE CATFISH 141 
 
 " Of course it's awful cheek of me," said Darragh 
 nervously, " but it's just that about trying 
 
 " We're not all lazy Irishmen," said George, 
 though he felt vaguely disturbed. 
 
 " Oh, of course, I know that your people want it, 
 and all that," said Darragh, "but you don't seem 
 to me to be that sort" 
 
 "What sort?" 
 
 " Well scholarships and things," said Dar- 
 ragh, wriggling with unaccustomed embarrassment. 
 " Look at Philpot and Greaves." 
 
 " Oh, I know I ain't as clever as Philpot and 
 Greaves," said George. 
 
 "Don't be an ass," said Darragh; "you know 
 you're a lot cleverer. At least, clever is not the 
 right word." He dug furiously in the sand, and 
 then added in a low tone, "You're too big to be 
 clever in that way, Tracy." 
 
 "Oh, it's all jolly fine for you," said George, 
 mollified by the hero-worship. " You know what 
 you can do, and you don't want to do anything else. 
 I've got to find out what I'm good for; and wouldn't 
 it be rather cheek of me to say what is the best way 
 of finding out? " 
 
 He knew that it was plausible rather than sin- 
 cere, but Darragh did not continue the argument.
 
 142 THE CATFISH 
 
 That was the worst of Darragh; he made you feel 
 insincere by just looking. George often felt that 
 his affection for Darragh was not very far from 
 hate. It was odd that all the people he liked best 
 seemed to have the same effect upon him. 
 
 After that he kept Darragh at a little distance. 
 He persuaded himself that the reason was Dar- 
 ragh's unsatisfactory point of view about religion, 
 and he derived comfort from the fact that Dar- 
 ragh was Irish. The Irish were naturally a dis- 
 loyal people, lacking in what might be called the 
 public-school spirit. In his heart George knew that 
 Darragh was not dangerous to his faith in religion 
 or in the wisdom of his elders, but to his faith 
 in himself. He would not have admitted that part 
 of his ambition was now to " show Darragh." 
 
 During the summer holidays, George was con- 
 scious of keeping the subject of Darragh in the 
 background. One day, his mother said to him: 
 
 " Are you and Darragh as great friends as 
 ever?" 
 
 "Of course we are, mother," he said rather 
 stiffly. 
 
 " You do not speak of him so much as you did," 
 said his mother. 
 
 " Oh, you can't be always talking about the same
 
 THE CATFISH 143 
 
 person," said George. " Besides," he added, " as 
 you get moved up, you get more into different sets. 
 Darragh's a good chap, but he isn't really a swotter, 
 and he's no good at games. But we see a lot of 
 each other in between." 
 
 His mother's curiosity irritated him. He said 
 to himself that, if she only knew, she would be 
 the first to discourage his friendship with Darragh. 
 He had said nothing to her about Darragh's lack 
 of religion. Partly because, though he couldn't 
 explain it, he felt that it was not really lack of 
 religion, and partly because he was afraid that his 
 mother might take the matter too seriously. 
 Women could not let well alone. For one thing, 
 she ought to be glad that he did not let himself 
 get too fond of Darragh and his mother. In his 
 heart he believed that she was glad, and that was 
 why she asked questions. 
 
 " You see, mother," he said, " of course, I like 
 the Darraghs awfully, but they're not really our 
 sort. They only care about books and pictures and 
 music." 
 
 (< That's why I'm glad they are your friends," 
 she said. " We are all so ignorant about things 
 like that." 
 
 " Oh, mother, don't be silly," he said, kissing
 
 144 THE CATFISH 
 
 her. " You know that I wouldn't swap you for 
 all the clever people in the world." 
 
 She remained silent for a few moments, smiling 
 to herself, and then said with adorable shyness : 
 
 " You know, George, sometimes I think that you 
 ought to have been a poet." 
 
 That was too far from probability to cause em- 
 barrassment, and George roared with laughter. 
 
 " You'd better tell the pater that," he said, " and 
 see how he'll look. Or I'll go up to the Head and 
 say : * Please, sir, my mother wants me to be a 
 poet.' " 
 
 " Never mind," said his mother good-humoredly, 
 " I know what I mean." 
 
 He continued to tease her, making up doggerel 
 about different members of the family. But though 
 the conversation only amused him at the time, after- 
 ward it caused him some concern. Not because 
 he thought his mother was right, but because her 
 remark reminded him of the division between his 
 parents. It was an old belief of his that his mother 
 managed his father. Although it was his father 
 who made plans for his future, it was his mother 
 who started the idea of his going up to Oxford; 
 and he shrewdly suspected that, once having got 
 him there, she would not care very much whether
 
 THE CATFISH 145 
 
 he followed his father's plans or not. Women 
 were like that; they did not seem to have any sense 
 of honor. Mrs. Darragh's disingenuous advice to 
 her son about religion was only another example 
 of the same defect. 
 
 The result was to deepen George's feeling of 
 loyalty to his father. More and more he was 
 learning to admire the quiet man who, as he got 
 older, was growing gentler and more affectionate, 
 though never demonstrative, to his own family, 
 and rather more reserved to the world outside. It 
 was always as if he saw danger ahead, and were 
 silently making preparations to hold the fort. To 
 the Bourneside estate was now added a strip of 
 low-lying gardens, with two cottages, between the 
 nearer end of the Orchard and the Bourne, so 
 that Mr. Tracy was now, in the technical sense, a 
 landlord. He seemed to derive peculiar satisfaction 
 from improving the comfort of his tenants, though 
 he was not a man to care for popularity. 
 
 George encouraged Walter to talk about their 
 father. Walter had a tremendous regard for him 
 as a man of business, and George gathered that, in 
 the affairs of the bank, he stood for a certain in- 
 flexibility of principle. He was a bold speculator, 
 but he would never take risks that could not be
 
 146 THE CATFISH 
 
 stated clearly on paper. Often there were differ- 
 ences on this account between him and his partners, 
 who were inclined to listen to the blandishments of 
 the new element in business. Walter did not put 
 these things very clearly to George, but the latter, 
 to his own slight astonishment, found himself 
 reading between the lines. Sometimes he felt that, 
 if he only knew the terms, he would have under- 
 stood business better than old Walter, whose usual 
 comment was, " Presently there will be no gentle- 
 men left in business " ; and there were moments 
 when he even regretted that he was not going into 
 the bank. There was a thrill, a romance about 
 the transactions that Walter spoke of, that the real 
 business men seemed to miss. 
 
 It puzzled George that Walter did not seem to 
 see anything in their father's passion for land. 
 He regarded it as an amiable weakness, a sort of 
 hobby, to be welcomed in its results as increasing 
 the family importance. With the extended social 
 opportunities of manhood, Walter was getting 
 quite keen about the family importance; he had 
 become a member of the Cleeve Tennis Club and 
 wanted his father to get him a commission in the 
 Volunteers. George, who cared nothing about the 
 family importance, refused to believe that his
 
 THE CATFISH 147 
 
 father's interest in land was only a hobby; he ob- 
 served that when his father spoke of dishonest or 
 incompetent people in business he did so with 
 quiet contempt, but that bad landlords made him 
 really angry. George felt that if anybody tried 
 to cheat his father in business, he would stand up 
 for his rights in a legal way, but that any attempt 
 to meddle with his land would arouse the sacred 
 fury that he himself had felt when Tom Burchell 
 broke his flower. 
 
 But when in an expansive moment George sug- 
 gested to Walter that their father regarded Bourne- 
 side as a sort of trust in the service of his country, 
 Walter laughed and called him an old romancer. 
 
 " You always did want to drag in some out- 
 landish idea or other," he said. 
 
 The remark reminded George of the scene with 
 Mary Festing in the nursery. Really, when he 
 thought of it, his father's regard for his tenants 
 was rather like his own inexplicable feelings about 
 the Servians. Lest Walter should remember the 
 same episode, he hastily changed the subject to an- 
 other one of greater safety. 
 
 But he felt a secret satisfaction when, on Walter's 
 broaching the subject of a commission in the Cleeve 
 Rifles, his father said :
 
 148 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Well, personally, I would rather you went into 
 the Yeomanry." 
 
 Walter looked dissatisfied, and Amelia said: 
 " But it's such an awful uniform." And George, 
 to his amusement, saw by Walter's face that the 
 same objection was in his mind. 
 
 " Just as you like, pater," said Walter, " only, of 
 course, there will be the expense of a horse " 
 
 " And besides," said Amelia, " the Yeomanry 
 officers are such a lot of chaw-bacons. Fancy hav- 
 ing old Burchell for a captain." 
 
 Mr. Tracy laughed good-humoredly, but, as 
 George observed, rather shyly. 
 
 " You'd better please yourself," he said to Walter. 
 " Remind me to speak to Colonel Fossett about it 
 to-morrow." 
 
 All the time George was yearning to show his 
 sympathy with his father. He saw perfectly well 
 that his father, like himself, would not betray him- 
 self to people who did not understand. Of course, 
 he wanted Walter to go into the Yeomanry, be- 
 cause the Yeomanry represented the land, and 
 George felt with elation that if he had been the 
 subject, his father would have told him the reason. 
 He had found the right word for his father; he 
 was an idealist.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 UNFORTUNATELY, the larger view of life 
 that George took back to St. Piran's did not 
 help him with his immediate problems. Definite 
 association with the classical side, and close contact 
 with born scholars, compelled him to recognize that 
 classics were not really his game. His native 
 powers only took him as far as the understanding 
 of principles; when once he saw the way things 
 went, or worked, his curiosity declined. If he had 
 thought of the distinction, he would have said that 
 he cared for syntax, but not for grammar. His 
 mind pulled up short before anything like an arbi- 
 trary rule, and he had the sort of memory that, 
 as if by some instinct of self-preservation for its 
 proper function, refuses to be burdened with a 
 verbal cargo. He did not really love literature for 
 its own sake, and when once he knew what was 
 in a book he did not particularly want to read it. 
 He felt that he already possessed it. 
 
 He worked hard, but he knew that he was forcing 
 
 his mind over obstacles and not, like Philpot and 
 
 149
 
 150 THE CATFISH 
 
 Greaves, his nearest rivals, taking them in the stride 
 of a genuine impulse for learning. It was only 
 the large general impulse derived from the sense 
 of a new harmony within his nature, and the desire 
 to please his father, that enabled him to keep abreast 
 of them. 
 
 What made it all the more galling was the con- 
 viction of real though undefined ability. He did not 
 need Darragh to tell him that Philpot and Greaves 
 were not his intellectual superiors. Yet he could 
 not have said honestly that he would have done 
 better if he had been entered on the modern side. 
 The same defects would have hindered him there. 
 As when he made machines that wouldn't work 
 in the nursery at Bourneside, his curiosity flagged 
 with the understanding of principles. 
 
 It was just the same in the playing-field. He was 
 the alternate hope and despair of the captain of 
 the school eleven. 
 
 " Tracy goes in," he said, " and you say : 
 ' There's a man who bats with his head.' But the 
 moment he gets the hang of the bowling, it's all 
 over. It isn't that he gets cock-sure; he loses in- 
 terest in what he's doing. He seems to think that 
 cricket is a sort of Euclid. You can see him say- 
 ing ' Q.E.D.,' and the next thing is Nunc Dimit-
 
 THE CATFISH 151 
 
 tis, and out he comes, grinning all over his face 
 as if he'd done something clever." 
 
 George could not explain why he caved in at 
 the wrong moment. He really wanted to distin- 
 guish himself at work and play. He could and 
 did play up for his side, but he always knew when 
 he was doing it. Fellows who really played up 
 for their side couldn't help it, though they might 
 make a virtue of necessity afterward. He said 
 to himself that it would be all right when he got 
 to the bar. The worst of it was, he had begun 
 to doubt if the course mapped out by his father 
 was the best way to get there. Sensitive to words, 
 he began to associate the bar of his father's con- 
 versation with the bar of the estuary. His whole 
 nature responded to the urgent summons of the 
 buoy, but before he could launch out into the sea; 
 of affairs he must get over the bar. It was the 
 intervening channel that bothered him. As he 
 watched the coasters going down from Trenanvore, 
 the little smoky port above St. Piran's, he thought 
 that possibly in a figurative sense he drew too much 
 water. He was not conceited, but Darragh's " too 
 big to be clever " had fatally stuck. The tide that 
 served Philpot and Greaves was too shallow for 
 him ; or the impulse derived from his native powers
 
 152 THE CATFISH 
 
 ran into too many side channels of speculation or 
 backwaters of dreaming. Moreover, he had no 
 pilot. His masters were trained to vessels of a 
 certain draught; his father frankly did not know 
 the shoals and sand-banks of learning; and after 
 all, it was his mother and not his father who had 
 first proposed the channel. He could trust his 
 father as a deep-sea pilot; once at the bar he would 
 be all right, and then, looking at the far horizon 
 that now flashed with such enchanting though unde- 
 fined possibilities, he began to wonder whether, after 
 all, the bank wouldn't have done as well for his 
 father's purpose as the bar. 
 
 The practical result of these fantastic specula- 
 tions, which, nevertheless, he knew to be prompted 
 by reality, was that his reports began to be dis- 
 couraging. The judgment, suspended for so long, 
 gradually recorded itself in vaguely disappointed 
 comments by one master and another, and a gen- 
 eral expression of concern by the Head. Mr. 
 Tracy was too far out of his depth to interpret 
 the signs correctly, but his reading of the last re- 
 port was conveyed in the nervous remark, " You 
 really are working, old man ? " 
 
 George could honestly assure his father that he 
 was. The very kindness of the question sapped
 
 THE CATFISH 153 
 
 his courage to say : " But it's no good." He went 
 back to St. Piran's as to a forlorn hope. At mid- 
 term he was called up to an interview with the 
 Head. In spite of his distress, George recognized 
 with grim amusement that the Head's conception 
 of his case was very much less clear than his own. 
 The Head was a small man, with delicate features, 
 a large round forehead and a wide silky beard. 
 He always reminded George of the picture of 
 Harun-al-Raschid in the Moxon Tennyson. He 
 ought to have worn a scimitar. By instinct a 
 . scholar, he created an atmosphere of great personal 
 dignity by moving slowly and speaking seldom; but 
 on occasions like the present one he sought to in- 
 spire confidence by adopting a man-of -the- world 
 attitude, expressed in the use of slang and by lean- 
 ing with crossed legs against the arm of his chair 
 which made him look more Oriental than ever. 
 
 " You know, Tracy," he said, after preliminaries 
 about the prospects of the school eleven, " you'll 
 have to do better than this if you mean to get a 
 scholarship." 
 
 " I know that, sir," said George pathetically. 
 The answer, as he saw directly, gave the wrong 
 impression. The Head looked at him sharply 
 through his round glasses and said:
 
 154 THE CATFISH 
 
 "Well, why don't you pull yourself together?" 
 
 That struck George as really illuminating. If 
 only he could bring the whole of himself to bear 
 upon the tasks of the moment! He tried to ex- 
 plain his difficulties, conscious all the time that it 
 sounded as if he were excusing himself for laziness. 
 
 " It seems to me, Tracy," said the Head dryly, 
 " that you can do anything you like." 
 
 " That's just it, sir," said George eagerly. " It's 
 because I can do it that I can't. I mean," he added 
 confusedly, " I don't feel as if I must do it." 
 
 The Head looked at him for a moment, and then 
 said politely : 
 
 " There's nothing the matter with your health, 
 Tracy, I trust?" 
 
 " Indeed, sir, no," said George hastily, " I'm as 
 fit as a fiddle." 
 
 That was true. He was now a well-grown boy 
 of seventeen, broad-shouldered and clear-colored. 
 
 " Since when," said the Head, " have you dis- 
 covered that scholarships are to be won by inner 
 compulsion ? " 
 
 " I've known it all my life, sir," said George in 
 a burst of candor, and then, seeing an ironical smile 
 curving the beard before him, he added: "Look 
 at Darragh, sir."
 
 THE CATFISH 155 
 
 "Darragh?" said the Head, momentarily puz- 
 zled, and then, indifferently : " Oh, Darragh. But 
 what has Darragh to do with your working for a 
 scholarship ? " 
 
 " Nothing, sir," said George, though he felt that 
 Darragh's opinion on the subject was worth quot- 
 ing. " But what I mean is that Darragh draws 
 well because he can't help it." 
 
 " Darragh undoubtedly has a great natural gift," 
 conceded the Head judicially. " I haven't ob- 
 served, Tracy," he continued, " anything that 
 could be called evidence of genius in any depart- 
 ment of your work that has come under my notice. 
 You are just the ordinary boy of good general abil- 
 ities." 
 
 " Oh, of course I know that, sir," said George, 
 overcome with confusion at seeming to claim spe- 
 cial consideration. " But " 
 
 " But," continued the Head, waving him to si- 
 lence, "you have some natural advantages which 
 many boys and men might envy. You are in 
 excellent health, and you have, I understand, an all- 
 round aptitude for the games that the experience 
 of several generations in our leading schools has 
 proved to play a by no means unimportant part in 
 the preparation for the race of life. Indeed, the
 
 156 THE CATFISH 
 
 tendency nowadays is perhaps to lay too much stress 
 upon this aspect of education. However, I may 
 say, Tracy, that I have never ceased to regret my 
 own lack of proficiency in field sports; and some 
 of your nearest companions " George knew he 
 meant Philpot and Greaves " are undoubtedly 
 handicapped, whether by defective vision or other 
 bodily disabilities, as you are not. Yet they do not 
 complain." 
 
 " Oh, please, sir, don't think I'm grumbling," 
 said George, now thoroughly reduced to a sense of 
 his own unworthiness. 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it," said the Head with genial 
 irony. " You see, Tracy," he continued, " our 
 public-school system is not the product of yesterday 
 or of hasty generalization. It has been slowly and 
 almost automatically formed through several cen- 
 turies upon close and untiring observation, by not 
 altogether despicable intellects, of every sort of 
 boy. Exceptions due to special talents there must 
 always be, but, even so, the system is elastic enough 
 to insure their preservation, with such cultivation 
 of the general powers as will fit the subject to take 
 a dignified place in life. Your friend Darragh is 
 an example. I do not think he will suffer in his 
 career as an artist by reason of his years at St.
 
 THE CATFISH 157 
 
 Piran's. As I said, you are not in any way ex- 
 ceptional except, perhaps, by a fortunate balance 
 of bodily and mental powers, manifestly in your 
 favor in the emulation for honors designed, I may 
 say, not for morbid intellectual development, but 
 for such attainment in certain carefully selected 
 branches of learning as is within the capacity of 
 the good average mind. I trust that the next few 
 months will show that you have made proper use 
 of your advantages." 
 
 Feeling strangely emptied of identity, George 
 turned to go, but, as if touched by his crestfallen 
 appearance, the Head added kindly: 
 
 " I may say, Tracy, that all the time you have 
 been here your general conduct has been found to 
 be excellent. I say this the more gladly because 
 your conversation to-day reminds me that when you 
 came to me to be prepared for confirmation I ob- 
 served a slight tendency to ah priggishness. 
 That will never do," he said, with a smile and a 
 great air of worldliness. " Play the game, Tracy, 
 but leave others to determine the rules." 
 
 At the time, George was as willing to believe that 
 he was a prig as anything else. He blushed and 
 stammered something about not meaning to be, and 
 the Head, still smiling, continued:
 
 158 THE CATFISH 
 
 " There's just one other thing, Tracy. Your 
 friendship with Darragh. Don't think I wish to 
 discourage it. On the contrary, such friendships 
 between men of different temperaments can not fail 
 to be beneficial to both concerned, and I happen 
 to know that you have more than once shielded 
 your friend from the inconveniences that a per- 
 haps over-sensitive nature may suffer in the healthy 
 give-and-take of a public school. That is as it 
 should be; but it is necessary to remember that 
 Darragh is exceptional, and that what, in view of 
 his special talent and chosen career, may be vir- 
 tues the love of imaginative literature and the 
 habit of ah esthetic speculation are not de- 
 sirable for you to imitate. You, I take it, are cut 
 out for the more active exercises of the intellect. 
 Share your hours of recreation with Darragh; but 
 do not seek to model yourself. upon him." 
 
 Evidently convinced that he had gone into 
 George's case very thoroughly, the Head patted him 
 on the shoulder and added, as a last word : 
 
 "We expect great things of you, Tracy. If you 
 are in any difficulty I don't mean with regard 
 to questions that may safely be left to older heads, 
 but with regard to your actual work come to 
 me."
 
 THE CATFISH 159 
 
 At the time George felt only remorse. He was 
 a prig, an upstart, a slacker a complete rotter, 
 as he phrased it to himself. But when he had 
 recovered from the immediate effect of the Head's 
 flowing periods, he began to question the facts. 
 He might be a rotter; but he wasn't the precise 
 kind of rotter the Head supposed him to be. He 
 had no quarrel with the public-school system; he 
 had never thought about it. What he wanted to 
 know was how to get all of himself into his work. 
 
 It was all his own fault for attempting to go in 
 for a scholarship. If he didn't know what he was, 
 he knew now what he wasn't. There were enough 
 examples round him for comparison. He was not, 
 like Philpot and Greaves, a scholar; he was not, 
 like other boys he could name, in the technical 
 sense a sportsman; he was not, like Darragh, an 
 artist. He could have kept his end up in any of 
 these phases of activity, but keeping your end up 
 simply wasn't good enough. 
 
 Convinced that nobody could help him, George 
 faced his troubles in a philosophical spirit. He 
 would give the scholarship a fair chance. At the 
 end of the summer term his report showed a slight 
 improvement in detail ; but George, with a new 
 sense of maturity, was not deceived. He had put
 
 i6o THE CATFISH 
 
 on a spurt, but he had not got second wind. When 
 you got second wind you were not conscious of 
 trying. He did not cease to try, but he knew that 
 he was now at the end of his resources and matched 
 with specialists. At Christmas, his report said that 
 it was doubtful whether without a great effort he 
 would stand any chance of the scholarship. 
 
 Mr. Tracy, though disappointed, took the report 
 in a practical spirit. 
 
 " Well," he said, " it's no use bothering about 
 that. I've no reason to suppose that you haven't 
 done your best." 
 
 George admired his father for instinctively see- 
 ing the futility of " special efforts ". He believed 
 that if his father had only known the rules of the 
 game in educational matters, he would have been a 
 better guide than the Head. He did not even feel 
 it necessary to assure his father that he had done 
 his best. 
 
 Mr. Tracy proposed that he should remain at 
 St. Piran's for another year, and then go up to 
 Oxford, " in the ordinary way." George felt that 
 now or never was the time to speak out, and with- 
 out a very clear idea of what he was proposing, he 
 said: 
 
 " Am I good enough for the bank? "
 
 THE CATFISH 161 
 
 Mr. Tracy stared at him for a moment, and then 
 said, with a short laugh: 
 
 " Good enough ? But it strikes me as rather a 
 waste." 
 
 George misunderstood him, and began to say 
 how sorry he was that he had let his father in for 
 all the expense of a public school. But Mr. Tracy 
 said: 
 
 " That is not what I mean, my dear boy. You 
 couldn't be expected to know until you tried, and, 
 anyhow, I shall never regret that you went to St. 
 Piran's. No, but I think you're fit for something 
 better than the bank." 
 
 George recognized that it was no time for 
 modesty and he said : 
 
 " Well, if I am, I believe I can find it out as well 
 there as anywhere else." He thought that it would 
 be cheek to add, " Look at you," but that was 
 what he was thinking. 
 
 The idea of the bank was evidently new to Mr. 
 Tracy, but he did not seem displeased. After 
 thinking for a moment, he said, almost apologetic- 
 ally: 
 
 " But have you considered the sacrifice ? " 
 
 "Yes, pater, I've thought of all that," said 
 George with more haste than truth. " I know that
 
 162 THE CATFISH 
 
 I should have a ripping time at Oxford, as I have 
 had at St. Piran's, but at the end of it there would 
 only be the same trouble over again. I'm not 
 really cut out for anything to do with books. Of 
 course," he added rather sheepishly, " I don't know 
 what I am good for, but I'm certain it isn't that. 
 I've proved it." 
 
 Mr. Tracy smiled at the boy's earnestness, but 
 he was impressed, and after putting the case for 
 the bank in the least attractive colors, he finally 
 agreed that George should leave St. Piran's at the 
 end of the next term. 
 
 George felt all the advantages of dealing with a 
 practical mind. But he had not reckoned with his 
 mother. From her remarks he could not make out 
 whether her ambition for him was mainly social 
 or whether she really believed that he was cut out 
 for intellectual distinction; but she was bitterly dis- 
 appointed at the change of plan. To his grief, she 
 pounced upon Darragh as the explanation. 
 
 " I believe he is jealous of you because he is not 
 going to Oxford himself," she said. 
 
 George was too honest to deny that Darragh had 
 helped him to recognize his unfitness for scholar- 
 ship, and, unfortunately, in trying to make his 
 mother see exactly how Darragh had influenced
 
 THE CATFISH 163 
 
 him, he said something about Darragh's religious 
 ideas. That set her talking about the godlessness 
 of artistic people in general. She wished she had 
 known before she allowed George to spend his 
 holidays with Darragh. George thought it was 
 all horribly unjust particularly since his mother 
 had once said that she thought he ought to have 
 been a poet. The result was to make him feel that 
 he could give her less of his confidence than ever. 
 Particularly since, though she did not actually say 
 so, he knew that she was blaming his father for 
 giving in to him. Mr. and Mrs. Tracy were not in 
 the habit of discussing their differences before their 
 children, but George observed that his father was 
 going about rather like a baited bull. 
 
 In after years George recognized that he got 
 more good out of his last term at St. Piran's than 
 all the preceding ones. Released from what he 
 felt to be a false position, he was able to enjoy 
 the spirit of the place in all its aspects. Half 
 consciously he formulated one of the first axioms 
 in his philosophy of life: that you got good out of 
 things in proportion as you didn't use them for 
 any ulterior purpose perhaps a more direct 
 interpretation of the real advantages of a public 
 school than the Head would have been willing to
 
 164 THE CATFISH 
 
 subscribe to. The odd thing was that George 
 didn't get slack at his work, and he saw with amuse- 
 ment that his masters were now convinced that he 
 had been malingering. He himself could not have 
 explained why it was, but the moment a thing 
 ceased to be expected of him it became attractive. 
 
 It was as if he had come back to St. Piran's 
 with his Bourneside personality, and in spite of 
 his real anxiety to taste life, he wished he could 
 have had his school-days all over again under the 
 new conditions. Half of him had never properly 
 enjoyed St. Piran's, and what remorse he felt was 
 with regard to his recaptured self rather than to 
 the place. Possibly his mother's denunciation of 
 Darragh had something to do with it, for he felt 
 that he owed the survival of himself to Darragh. 
 With the injustice of youth, he did not reflect that 
 his mother had an earlier claim than Darragh to 
 the self he now redeemed. For some reason her 
 approaches had always frightened him, and if 
 there is one thing true of confidence, it is, " Ask, 
 and it shall not be given." Certainly the Head's 
 warning brought him nearer to Darragh. George 
 knew that he had never modeled himself on 
 Darragh; the truth being that, through all his ef- 
 forts to play the game required of him, Darragh
 
 THE CATFISH 165 
 
 had kept him in sight of possibilities which, in some 
 way as yet unexplained, represented his real ef- 
 fectiveness. 
 
 His feeling to Darragh was now gratitude, en- 
 hanced by the misunderstanding with his mother. 
 Fortunately, she had not been foolish enough to 
 forbid the friendship, and George was now ex- 
 periencing the inevitable sadness of divided affec- 
 tion. He loved his mother, not less, but in a 
 different way; he was willing to give her anything 
 but the one thing she implicitly asked. 
 
 Everything conspired to keep his last term at 
 St. Piran's on an emotional plane. Darragh was 
 leaving at the end of the year to go to an art 
 school in London, and so there was a double future 
 to discuss, with all the possibilities of meeting in 
 fresh, and, on one side, romantic circumstances. 
 George's immediate future could not be called 
 romantic, but Darragh seemed to think he had 
 chosen wisely. He put it in a phrase : " You are 
 banking yourself." 
 
 Also, it was spring. In this remote corner of 
 England, where the earth smiled even in her winter 
 sleep, the awakening was lovelier for delay. As 
 yet, the signs were faint and few: sallows broke 
 silver, elm buds thickened and reddened, and there
 
 1 66 THE CATFISH 
 
 was a milky splash of primroses in the gray ash- 
 grove behind the church on the sand-hills. No 
 longer urgent with heavy weather, the buoy called 
 faintly over a sea that flushed and paled with 
 hues of promise. To George, remembering other 
 springs as if after an interval of distraction, it 
 seemed that his two landscapes had come to- 
 gether and made friends. He walked free in both, 
 dreaming of the Grove in the bare mystery of the 
 hills, and beyond the calling of the buoy he heard 
 the steady purring of the Waterfall. Veiled by 
 the sound heard, the sound remembered was lighter 
 in rhythm, and what had been "Doom!" became 
 " Destiny ! " The question remained, and with 
 hope was mingled regret. Never again would he 
 know spring to the calling of the buoy. 
 
 The impression that George left behind him at 
 St. Piran's was that of an attractive youth who, 
 out of some perversity, had flung away a brilliant 
 future. At a last interview, the Head talked to 
 him very gravely. 
 
 " Nothing in this world, Tracy," he said, " can 
 be done without trying. Life is a series of efforts, 
 and the reason is not always plain. You have good 
 powers, but there is a strain of what I can only
 
 THE CATFISH 167 
 
 call fatalism in your character which you should 
 guard against at all costs." 
 
 George listened all the more respectfully because 
 the Head had presented him with a convenient word. 
 What the Head called fatalism he had hitherto 
 described to himself as the knack of seeing when 
 it was no go. Like the Irishman who fought a 
 duel as the result of mixing up anchovies with 
 capers, he felt inclined to cry : " That's what I 
 meant, sir!" But he doubted if the Head would 
 understand, and he knew that he couldn't explain 
 without a lot about machinery and the line of least 
 resistance, so he said nothing. In passing, it struck 
 him as funny that anybody who looked so Oriental 
 as the Head should object to fatalism.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AT first George did not know whether to be 
 glad or sorry when his father told him that 
 he was to be broken in at the London branch of 
 the bank, instead of in Barstow. He appreciated 
 what he supposed to be the intention; his father 
 wished to spare him the humiliation of seeming 
 a failure among people who knew him. Also there 
 was his mother to be considered. The first reason 
 would not have weighed with George; having 
 chosen, he was prepared to " stick it out " to the 
 last consequences; but he recognized the wisdom 
 of the second. His mother would not say any 
 more, but his immediate presence at home could 
 not fail to be irritating to her. For some reasons, 
 George was a little disappointed at the idea of go- 
 ing to London. His renewed sense of identity 
 made him eager to revive the associations of 
 Bourneside. He could not have said why, but he 
 could never bring himself to believe that his own 
 story was to be lived anywhere else. He belonged 
 
 to the Bourne as if, on that night of arrival, when 
 
 168
 
 THE CATFISH 169 
 
 he had first awakened to a personal existence, he 
 had been actually plucked from its waters. But, 
 after all, London was London, and in a few months 
 there would be Darragh. 
 
 George's first impressions of London were in- 
 fluenced by the company of his father and a 
 preliminary study of the map. They arranged 
 themselves upon a groundwork of the Thames, first 
 encountered at Maidenhead, and two long roads, 
 all aiming east and converging upon the city, where, 
 in addition to the London branch of Burroughs, 
 Tracy & Co., were St. Paul's Cathedral, the Bank 
 of England and the Tower. Somewhere between 
 the two long roads, which went through many 
 adventures under different names before they 
 reached their destination, was Hyde Park, and 
 somewhere upon the Thames was Westminster. 
 One of the long roads passed near Paddington, and 
 the true meaning of Paddington was indicated by 
 the fact that the station where you gave up your 
 ticket before arriving was called Westbourne Park. 
 It was many years before George really took in the 
 fact that London extended north and south as well 
 as east and west. A sort of mental astigmatism, 
 induced by poring over the map in the train 
 tmder a strong sense of the direction in which he
 
 i;o THE CATFISH 
 
 was traveling, made all the horizontal lines clear 
 and important and left all the vertical ones a lit- 
 tle out of focus. When he unpacked his bag, 
 it gave him a slight shock of surprise to find that 
 the needle of his compass pointed across his 
 mental picture of London. That night he dreamed 
 that he was trying to twist the needle round against 
 the current of the Bourne, while Mary Festing 
 looked at him out of her narrow eyes and said, 
 " It's no good ; you can't stop in London," and he 
 woke with a slight headache. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin, the manager of the London branch, 
 had found lodgings for George in Earl's Court. 
 The exact address was 19, Cardigan Square, 
 Earl's Court Road, W. The lady of the house 
 was called Mrs. Dove. She was the widow of a 
 doctor, and had lost her little all in a bank smash. 
 " So it seems like Providence, your coming here," 
 she said to George. Particularly, she added, be- 
 cause Earl's Court was on gravel, and George 
 supposed her to mean that she wouldn't have 
 known that if she hadn't been a doctor's widow. 
 George liked Mrs. Dove from the beginning. She 
 managed to look both tidy and distraught at the 
 same time, which somehow struck him as an 
 attractive combination, and it was she who first
 
 THE CATFISH 171 
 
 called his attention to the fact that his father, who 
 stopped the night, had a beautiful " speaking voice." 
 George was to be a paying guest and eat his dinner 
 with Mrs. Dove and the other guest, who was Mr. 
 Mahon. He was really Captain Mahon, Mrs. 
 Dove explained, but he didn't like the title used 
 because at the age when he left the army he ought 
 to have been at least a major. He had been in 
 the commissariat department, and was very par- 
 ticular about his breakfast. 
 
 George did not make the acquaintance of Mr. 
 Mahon that evening, because his father took him 
 out to dinner at a queer place under some railway 
 arches, where they sat on red velvet chairs, and 
 Mr. Tracy regretted that fieldfares were not in 
 season. Afterward they went to the Savoy 
 Theater to see The Gondoliers. George had never 
 seen anything on the stage more poetical than the 
 Barstow pantomime, and he thought Tessa's song 
 But Marco's Quite Another Thing the very heart's 
 cry of passion. 
 
 They did not see Mr. Mahon in the morning, 
 because, as Mrs. Dove explained, he never had his 
 breakfast until ten. The further information that 
 he couldn't sleep unless his bed were north and 
 south struck George as remarkable, after his dream,
 
 172 THE CATFISH 
 
 and he wondered who was Mr. Mahon's Eno that 
 he couldn't get on without. After breakfast they 
 went to the bank by underground from Earl's 
 Court to the Mansion House. George liked the 
 underground; the smell of it seemed to go with 
 the word " London." The bank was in Thread- 
 needle Street, and at first, George was disappointed 
 at its comparative unimportance. But everything 
 in London looked rather smaller than he had ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin was as bald as his name suggested, 
 and very thin-lipped and precise, though he had 
 a beautiful rose in his buttonhole. He said there 
 was nothing doing, and George felt that it was 
 only Mr. Baldwin's friendship for his father that 
 induced him to be bothered with a learner. The 
 terms between the two men interested him. He 
 had not expected his father to order Mr. Baldwin 
 about, because his father was always kind to 
 subordinates; but it really seemed as if the London 
 branch belonged to Mr. Baldwin. Or, rather, the 
 impression George received was that if all the 
 owners of the bank were dead and forgotten, Mr. 
 Baldwin, for no profit of his own, would still be 
 managing the London branch, where nothing was 
 doing. When Mr. Tracy asked Mr. Baldwin if he
 
 THE CATFISH 173 
 
 would join them at lunch at one o'clock, Mr. Bald- 
 win did not seem a bit pleased. But George saw 
 that his father liked Mr. Baldwin and had great 
 confidence in him. 
 
 In the interval before lunch they went to the 
 Royal Exchange, which, from the apparently aim- 
 less though mildly excited men standing about, 
 George supposed to do for commerce what the bar 
 did for government and the higher professions; 
 and to St. Paul's Cathedral, where he was a little 
 surprised to find that his father trod reverently. 
 On consideration, however, he decided that St. 
 Paul's was not quite the same as a church. It was 
 more like his idea of a pantheon, and perhaps his 
 father did reverence to the noble dead of every 
 creed and period, including dead Romans. 
 
 They met Mr. Baldwin in a little dark place with 
 a sawdusted floor, where they had steaks, without 
 potatoes, Cheddar cheese, and bitter beer. George 
 was not very hungry, and Mr. Baldwin said, not 
 unkindly, but in a tone of advice : 
 
 " At your age my lunch every day cost me two- 
 pence." 
 
 Mr. Tracy laughed and said : " Mr. Spaull will 
 take his lunch in hand." 
 
 George had already learned that Mr. Spaull was
 
 174 THE CATFISH 
 
 the cashier, and he wondered what was the joke. 
 Mr. Baldwin, with great scorn, explained that Mr. 
 Spaull was " a rabid vegetarian ". Then they 
 talked about gardening. Mr. Baldwin lived at 
 Barking which seemed to suit his watchdog 
 manner and grew roses. He asked Mr. Tracy's 
 advice about gardening, as George felt he wouldn't 
 have done about banking, though, as George knew, 
 his father was not an authority upon flowers. Mr. 
 Baldwin said that some day he really must do him- 
 self the pleasure of coming down to Bourneside. 
 
 The atmosphere of the place, with elderly aproned 
 waiters answering to names like " Henry " and 
 " William," and the conversation, gave George the 
 word he wanted to describe his general impression 
 of London. It was all very homely; much more 
 countrified in a way than Barstow or St. Piran's. 
 After lunch they just had time to go to West- 
 minster Abbey, which, in spite of its greater age, 
 struck George as much less old-fashioned than St. 
 Paul's " Fiercer, somehow," he phrased it to 
 himself and to glance at the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, before Mr. Tracy caught his train at Pad- 
 dington. 
 
 At first George thought that he would not like 
 Mr. Mahon. He was a rather shaky, fresh-colored
 
 THE CATFISH 175 
 
 old gentleman with a gray mustache; and, par- 
 ticularly in profile, all the lines of his face looked 
 as if they had been done with a pair of compasses. 
 George was displeased at Mr, Mahon's trembling 
 gravity about his dinner. Every now and then he 
 roused himself to make a little joke, but im- 
 mediately relapsed into the serious business of his 
 plate. George's headache, kept at bay by the 
 novelty of his impressions, now rolled out into 
 the forecourt of his brain; and when Mrs. Dove 
 remarked that he had no appetite, and Mr. Mahon 
 learned that he had dined out the night before, the 
 old gentleman said: 
 
 " Aha ! " and holding up a fat and shaking fore- 
 finger, continued impressively: "Nemo mortalium 
 omnibus horis sapit" as if he thoroughly under- 
 stood the situation. 
 
 Mr. Mahon drank gin and ginger-beer at dinner, 
 and afterward remained in the dining-room with 
 his bottles and three cigars which he had brought 
 home in a little paper bag. In the drawing-room 
 on the first floor, Mrs. Dove and George had coffee 
 -while she talked to him about Mr. Mahon. She 
 was afraid that sometimes he drank too much gin 
 and ginger-beer and became " quite stupid " ; but 
 he never forgot that he was a gentleman, and al-
 
 176 THE CATFISH 
 
 ways came into the drawing-room at ten o'clock 
 to say good night. He spent the whole day 
 at his dub, and never touched anything between 
 breakfast and dinner. 
 
 George soon lost his dislike of Mr. Mahon. He 
 saw that he was an idealist. All his life was a 
 serious preparation for breakfast and dinner, with 
 self-denials and a whole drama of temptations 
 resisted at the club. He preserved his appetite 
 as a woman might guard her virtue in difficult 
 circumstances. He had a ritual of the subject. 
 His " Can't I tempt you, Mrs. Dove ? " as he un- 
 corked the gin bottle, was a formula never omitted, 
 and his " No, no, don't tempt me ! " when pressed 
 to a second helping of sweets was an epitome of 
 roguish discretion. Sometimes he would remember 
 to add: "And you the wife of a medical man!" 
 
 It was a long time before George had an oppor- 
 tunity to see Mr. Mahon at breakfast. The specta- 
 cle was really worth while. With a napkin tucked 
 in his collar, and an air of one performing a reli- 
 gious exercise, the old gentleman slowly and 
 tremblingly absorbed a large plate of porridge, two 
 mutton chops, an egg and seven pieces of toast and 
 marmalade. 
 
 Besides his poetic rather than sensual regard for
 
 THE CATFISH 177 
 
 his appetite, Mr. Mahon had a habit which attracted 
 George. Every Sunday morning he went to mass 
 at the pro-cathedral in High Street, Kensington. 
 It seemed to George quite beautiful that an old 
 gentleman, who had been a soldier, and now 
 thought of nothing but his breakfast and dinner, 
 and spent all his days at a club, should go regularly 
 to mass. 
 
 Altogether, George settled down very comfort- 
 ably in London. In a very short time he was put- 
 ting Mrs. Dove's cap straight for her, and he won 
 her heart by taking notice of her two cats : Tibby, 
 who was black and a born aristocrat, and Mitty, 
 who was tabby and plebeian and always having 
 kittens. George had a bed-sitting room behind the 
 drawing-room, with a sycamore-tree at the window, 
 and a slanting view into a famous Square, in which 
 most of the houses were draped with Virginia 
 creeper, reminding him of Skye terriers. He did 
 not very often sit in his room. Generally, if he 
 did not go out, he stayed in the drawing-room with 
 Mrs. Dove, and got her to talk about her foreign 
 travels. She had been to Paris, and up the Rhine, 
 and brought back a portfolio of sketches. Her chef- 
 d'oeuvre was a red-chalk drawing of Heidelberg 
 Castle.
 
 178 THE CATFISH 
 
 George's impression of the homeliness of London 
 deepened with further acquaintance. There was 
 the homeliness of the court, which not only Mrs. 
 Dove's well-informed conversation but the news- 
 papers impressed upon him; the homeliness of the 
 city not to speak of the minor homeliness of the 
 bank and, at close range, the particular homeli- 
 ness of the Square. George was not quite clever 
 enough to say that London was extravagantly 
 provincial, but that was what he felt, and The 
 Napoleon of Hotting Hill was not yet written to 
 glorify its provincialism. 
 
 The homeliness of the Square enchanted him. 
 If the Square had not a voice, it had a corporate 
 conscience by no means dependent upon communi- 
 cation between one inhabitant and another. Mrs. 
 Dove did not even know the names of her next- 
 door neighbors. But .every house was sensitive 
 to the opinion of the others, and any attempt to 
 strike out a line in decoration had the effect of 
 asserting independence the surest proof of in- 
 stinctive solidarity. When a large public event, 
 or a royal birth, marriage, or death was in the 
 air, speculation as to what the Square was going 
 to do about it was evident in every window. If 
 there was any approach to articulate expression of
 
 THE CATFISH 179 
 
 the common will, it was at the florist's facing the 
 Earl's Court Road the only shop in the Square. 
 The " Cardigan Arms," flanking one corner with 
 red and gold, was, of course, only concerned with 
 the business of the Mews though sometimes a 
 servant might carry gossip. 
 
 Even the people who waited upon the special 
 material or sentimental needs of the Square had 
 the character of elected officials with vested rights 
 and prospects of a pension. It was not " a " but 
 " the " cat's-meat, muffin, watercress, organ or 
 lavender man. Every Wednesday morning a thin 
 frock-coated old gentleman walked through the 
 Square playing upon an oboe. He never played 
 anything but " Mother in the Realms of Glory, 
 is there Room for Mary There ? " and George felt 
 that, less by the capacity of the performer than by 
 a long process of elimination, the tune had been 
 decided upon as best suited to the average musical 
 needs of the neighborhood. 
 
 Every morning George went to the bank by 
 underground from Earl's Court to the Mansion. 
 House. The staff at the bank consisted of Mr. 
 Baldwin, the manager, Mr. Spaull, the cashier, Mr. 
 Shelmerdine, the senior, and himself, the junior 
 counter-clerk, and Goss, the porter. With Mr.
 
 i8o THE CATFISH 
 
 Baldwin, George had only official relations; but 
 Mr. Spaull and Mr. Shelmerdine were more or less 
 intimately associated with his personal affairs. 
 
 Mr. Spaull was a very thin, middle-aged man, 
 with wild eyes and an unprospering beard. His 
 first remark to George was : " So you have come 
 to this accursed place"; and George understood 
 him to mean, not the bank, but London. Mr. 
 Spaull was married and lived at Clapham, where 
 he was always at loggerheads with the education 
 and medical authorities about his children. Besides 
 being a vegetarian, he was an anti-vaccinationist, an 
 anti-vivisectionist, a homeopathist and an agnostic. 
 In after years George recognized that Mr. Spaull 
 must have been a pioneer. He was the abstract 
 garden citizen a being distinct from the country- 
 man in that he needs a solid mass of bricks and 
 mortar to gird against. But in those days there 
 were no garden cities, or other organized play- 
 grounds for Mr. Spaull's hobbies, so that he had 
 the distinction of a voice crying in the wilderness. 
 On the first Saturday, he caught George by the 
 shoulder and said fiercely, " Come out and save 
 your soul ! " He took him to Clapham, fed him 
 on lentils and tomatoes, and then led him a violent 
 walk across the common. In the middle of a
 
 ,THE CATFISH 181 
 
 lecture upon proteids and albuminoids he snatched 
 off his hat, and gazing fixedly at a railway embank- 
 ment, said something about " God's good air." 
 
 At first George was interested in Mr. Spaull's 
 ideas, but, though he continued to like him, after 
 a few more violent excursions in God's good air, 
 he found his conversation tiresome. Unlike Mr. 
 Spaull, George was inspired by London, and by 
 this time he had discovered that, if not in the 
 material at any rate in the poetic sense, there was 
 more of God's good air to be breathed in such places 
 as Kensington Gardens, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 Chelsea, Tower Hill, and even Mile End Road, 
 not to speak of the enchanting little city church- 
 yards, than in the environs of Clapham, Also he 
 gathered from the conversation of Mrs. Spaull, 
 an anxious woman with three sickly, spectacled 
 little girls, that the basis of Mr. Spaull's revolt 
 from civilization was the fact that the poor fellow 
 was consumptive. Fortunately, as a backslider, 
 one who had succumbed to the " soul-destroying 
 influence of this great city," George was even more 
 enticing to Mr. Spaull than as a convert; and, by 
 keeping in opposition and cultivating a turn for 
 paradox, he remained on the best of terms with 
 the excited cashier.
 
 182 THE CATFISH 
 
 Mr. Shelmerdine was a Blade. Of all the staff 
 at the bank George liked him least, though he was 
 nearest his own age. He was the only one who 
 seemed to remember that George was the son of 
 one of the partners an attention that George 
 instinctively resented as much as he appreciated 
 its neglect by Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Spaull. Mr. 
 Shelmerdine frequented music-halls and the com- 
 pany of medical students. He would speak of " a 
 grand tear round " the night before, and of having 
 an awful head on him, and he professed to despise 
 his occupation and to wonder at George's adopting 
 the same when he might have had a " high old 
 time up at Oxford " ; but George observed that he 
 did his work very well and was appreciated by 
 Mr. Baldwin for his quickness in seeing opportu- 
 nities for new business. He had an irresistible 
 way with chance customers, uncertain where to 
 place an account. Sometimes George went to a 
 music-hall with Mr. Shelmerdine, whose conduct 
 was noisy rather than reprehensible, and once to 
 a hospital smoking concert. Here he was hailed 
 with delight by Tom Burchell, who was now at 
 Guy's, and the result was that George found him- 
 self responsible for Mr. Shelmerdine, instead of 
 the other way about.
 
 THE CATFISH 183 
 
 George liked his work at the bank. It was just 
 difficult enough in detail to keep his attention oc- 
 cupied without making any real demands upon his 
 intelligence. He would not have said that he was 
 deliberately marking time in order to save his 
 energy for something else, though he soon recog- 
 nized, with respect for his colleagues, that there 
 was an essential difference between the way he did 
 his work and the way they did theirs. His con- 
 science was for details, theirs for the general 
 scheme. Everything to him was equally important, 
 while they saw exactly what mattered. Mr. Bald- 
 win and Mr. Spaull would seem astonishingly care- 
 less about things that he fussed over, but every 
 now and then there would come a little crisis in 
 which no sacrifice of time and trouble was too much 
 for them. As he saw, it was not the fear of con- 
 sequences or the desire to please employers that 
 inspired them ; it was the passionately uncompromis- 
 ing zeal of the artist. The difference between 
 him and them was the difference between the 
 amateur and the professional. 
 
 Both Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Spaull were pleased 
 at the way he did his work. They said he was 
 thorough and methodical. It was the gay Mr. 
 Shelmerdine who surprised, and, in spite of the
 
 1 84 THE CATFISH 
 
 criticism, pleased him by defining his limitations. 
 
 " I say, old man," he said, " you're all right, you 
 know, but, if you don't mind my saying so, you'll 
 never make a banker." 
 
 " No ? " said George in a tone of very consider- 
 able amusement. 
 
 " Not for toffee," said Mr. Shelmerdine. " It's 
 a good thing you're not in it for a living." For 
 once George forgave him the hint that he was the 
 son of one of the partners. Mr. Shelmerdine 
 smoothed his wavy black hair, arranged his bril- 
 liant tie, and continued: 
 
 "Look here. I'll tell you your history, if you 
 were. You'd stick here until I was made chancel- 
 lor of the exchequer or cleared out the safe 
 and then you'd get my stool, with a board school 
 pup who despised you to break in. Then, if you 
 made no serious mistakes and I don't think you 
 would, because you're careful and clear-headed 
 after about three years you'd be sent down to 
 Barstow to take your place with half a dozen other 
 good old stick-in-the-muds. Once there you'd wait 
 for somebody to die. Every now and then your 
 name would come up. ' Mr. Tracy ? Oh, yes ; a 
 careful reliable man, but no initiative.' One after 
 one you'd see your chances go, and by the time
 
 THE CATFISH 185 
 
 you were forty, and bald, you'd be glad to get a 
 managership at Little Slocum, with jessamine over 
 the name-board and quite a rush on market day." 
 
 George laughed at the picture, though he recog- 
 nized its probable truth. Mr. Shelmerdine saw 
 through him in banking, just as Darragh did in 
 scholarship. The implications were different, how- 
 ever. He was not expected to distinguish himself 
 in banking. Interested, he asked Mr. Shelmerdine 
 exactly what did make a banker. 
 
 "Ah, there you are," said Mr. Shelmerdine. 
 " Might as well ask me what makes Bessie Bellwood 
 or Charlie Coburn. You've got it, or you haven't. 
 Your governor's got it or had it for the old con- 
 ditions. It's " he gently pummeled his large 
 nose in the effort to think of an illustration " it's 
 knowing when and what and why all at the same 
 time. It's knowing just when to let the tidy little 
 routine go hang and put your shirt on what looks 
 like the off-chance. Even old Baldwigs hasn't got 
 quite that. What he doesn't know about what is 
 isn't worth knowing. It's what isn't Oh, I 
 can smell it ! " 
 
 George knew that Mr. Shelmerdine was not 
 bragging, nor was he greatly disturbed at the de- 
 structive criticism of himself. He was at least
 
 i86 THE CATFISH 
 
 learning " what is " and the way the tide of money 
 ebbed and flowed. Moreover, though as yet he 
 would hardly trust the feeling, he began to suspect 
 that his detachment gave him certain advantages. 
 Even Mr. Shelmerdine, though he felt or smelt 
 every fluctuation in the tide of money, and, as 
 his guarded remark about Mr. Tracy showed, was 
 aware that the general movement was not the same 
 as it had been, did not appear to notice the cosmic 
 changes that were reflected in the tide. 
 
 George could not pretend to understand the 
 changes, but he felt them. As he extended his 
 knowledge of London, he began to see the reason 
 of what he had called homeliness. London in 
 general had altered, but London in particular was 
 not aware of it. The city, Westminster and 
 even such minor provinces as the Square pre- 
 served their own traditions. The traditions no 
 longer corresponded with the facts. Most of the 
 institutions of London were frankly survivals, and 
 St. Paul's looked old-fashioned because it really 
 expressed the city. Meanwhile, what Mr. Tracy 
 called the new race, " very sharp and able," and, 
 from what George could make out, chiefly com- 
 posed of Americans and Jews, was gradually in- 
 vading London and exploiting its homeliness.
 
 THE CATFISH 187 
 
 London was. uneasily aware of the new race, but, 
 instead of trying to absorb it, either grumbled or 
 made clumsy attempts to imitate the methods of 
 the invaders, 
 
 From George's position, he heard most of the 
 grumbling. If he had been asked to put his general 
 impression into words, he would have said that 
 commerce, London's proper game, unless it were 
 frankly old-fashioned, was disappearing in finance. 
 People used to make things and then sell them in 
 order to make money; now they were trying to 
 make money out of money, and things had become 
 only a means to that end. The comparatively few 
 people who continued to make things for their own 
 sake were doing so at an enormous disadvantage 
 chiefly because they did not make the things that 
 other people really wanted. Then they either grum- 
 bled at the change in taste, or spent their energy in 
 inventing all sorts of ingenious ways of inducing 
 people to buy things that they did not really want. 
 Hence the enormous increase of advertising. From 
 conversations with customers over the counter, 
 George was led to believe that inducing people to 
 buy what they did not want had become the accepted 
 meaning of good business. 
 
 His own immediate concern, of course, was with
 
 1 88 THE CATFISH 
 
 finance; but he could not help seeing past it. In- 
 deed, he was beginning to feel that the peculiarity 
 which distinguished him from most other people 
 was that he did see past the legitimate occupation 
 of the moment. He did not yet claim it as a virtue ; 
 on the contrary, he saw that, so far, it had kept 
 him from doing anything really well. Until he got 
 hold of something that he could not see past, some 
 game that could be played indefinitely on its own 
 lines to the satisfaction of all his faculties, he could 
 not really put his weight into it. Meanwhile, as 
 Darragh said, he was banking himself with all 
 sorts of accumulating interest in the way of ob- 
 servations. It amused him to think that, just as 
 the business of banking was supposed not to injure 
 social prestige, so it seemed not to hinder the har- 
 monious development of one's general powers. It 
 did not, like scholarship, commit you to exhausting 
 effort in one direction which might be the wrong 
 one.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ONE great advantage of the bank to George 
 was that it acted as a sort of magnet to 
 people from his own part of the country. George 
 was not homesick, but he was very loyal to the 
 place of his birth. He professed to be able to pick 
 out West-country people in the streets of London, 
 saying that they looked larger and cleaner than 
 everybody else. Few of the regular customers at 
 the bank were more than Barstovians by descent 
 if they were Barstovians at all and some had 
 never been to Barstow, but seldom a day passed 
 without a man or woman coming in who belonged 
 to the West and was only in London on business 
 or pleasure. To George they were always friends, 
 and he generally managed to add to the necessary 
 formalities and remarks upon the weather some 
 question about West-country affairs. Mr. Shel- 
 merdine complained that he was far more anxious 
 to talk turnips than to get business. " I believe 
 you'd honor anything with a Barstow accent," he 
 said. 
 
 189
 
 THE CATFISH 
 
 One morning a lady came in who looked more 
 like Paris than Barstow. She was not young, but 
 remarkably handsome. George instinctively left 
 her to Mr. Shelmerdine, who as instinctively ar- 
 ranged his tie. The lady walked up to the counter, 
 and resting the tips of her fingers upon it, coolly 
 compared one young man with the other. Then, 
 with a little almost ironical bow to Mr. Shelmer- 
 dine, she turned to George. 
 
 "It's you I want," she said; "you must be the 
 son of Walter Tracy, though you're not much like 
 him." 
 
 George confessed his paternity, and the lady said : 
 
 " I'm Mrs. Glanville." 
 
 The name conveyed nothing to George, and be- 
 fore he could think of something polite, she went 
 on: 
 
 "Of course you wouldn't. Nor would your 
 father, for the matter of that. Tell him you've 
 been to see Jane Mario w that is if you'll come 
 on Sunday? I had your address, but I've lost it." 
 
 George said he should be delighted, but he looked 
 so confused that Mrs. Glanville laughed outright. 
 
 " It's quite proper," she said. " I knew your 
 father oh, years ago. How is he, and has he 
 saved England with cabbages ? "
 
 THE CATFISH 191 
 
 George said that his father was very well, and 
 tried to think of a witty retort to the question 
 about cabbages, which he recognized to be cheeky; 
 but before he could do so Mrs. Glanville had recov- 
 ered herself and said : 
 
 " Never mind. On Sunday, then, at four-thirty ; 
 5, Devonport Terrace, Hyde Park close to Lan- 
 caster Gate. You'd better put it down." 
 
 Half amused and half resentful, George obeyed, 
 and then, shaking hands with a quick little squeeze 
 that completely demoralized him, the spirited lady 
 acknowledged Mr. Shelmerdine's homage of the 
 eye, and moved to the door. Through the blind 
 George observed that Goss, the porter, put her into 
 a very smart-looking carriage. 
 
 " Widow, money, rides in the Row, eye for 
 a good-looking young man," said Mr. Shelmer- 
 dine concisely and not uncomplacently. " Always 
 thought your respected governor had been a bit of 
 a boy-oh." 
 
 " Shut up ! " said George good-humoredly. In 
 passing, he conceded the justice of, at any rate, one 
 item in Mr. Shelmerdine's summary, and wished he 
 had his coolness. Mrs. Glanville had the carriage 
 of a horsewoman. " She takes a lot for granted," 
 he said loftily.
 
 192 THE CATFISH 
 
 "Rats!" said Mr. Shelmerdine. "You'll be 
 there on Sunday. Wish I had your luck." 
 
 In the interval, George tried to persuade himself 
 that he was not curious about Mrs. Glanville. He 
 wondered how she had got his address which she 
 had lost. He had never heard his father speak of 
 Jane Marlow, though that was nothing, because 
 he seldom spoke of his early days. Mrs. Glanville 
 would be a few years younger than his father, he 
 supposed. He dismissed the suggestion conveyed 
 by Mr. Shelmerdine's impudent remark. Jane Mar- 
 low might have been in love with his father, but 
 he felt instinctively that she wouldn't have said 
 cheeky things about a man who had been in love 
 with her. Evidently, though, his father's passion 
 for land was an old story. 
 
 On Sunday, when he presented himself at 5, 
 Devonport Terrace, his curiosity about Mrs. Glan- 
 ville was diverted, because the first person she in- 
 troduced him to was Mary Festing. 
 
 " I should have explained," said Mrs. Glanville, 
 " only the good-looking Jew boy undid me, that it 
 was Mary who got me your address. She got it 
 from the boy Darragh you must bring him 
 here."
 
 THE CATFISH 193 
 
 It was all too close-packed for immediate com- 
 prehension. For one thing, it hadn't occurred to 
 George that Mr. Shelmerdine was a Jew, though 
 now he recognized the probability, and marveled at 
 Mrs. Glanville's cleverness. Then, apparently, 
 Mrs. Glanville didn't know Darragh yet, and so 
 Mary must have talked about himself to Mrs. Glan- 
 ville. The result of his confused though rapid 
 reflections was that he held Mary Festing's cool 
 slim hand a moment longer than he might other- 
 wise have done, and said, with almost injured 
 impulsiveness, " You again ! " 
 
 She laughed, and the sound of her laugh low, 
 melancholy, and yet triumphant made him take 
 her in, and it was as if the laugh had sketched her. 
 Then he was glad that he had spoken as he had, 
 for he knew that he could never again speak with 
 the same detachment to the slender girl the sickle 
 moon in her hollow stoop and silveriness who 
 now, as if shy at his glance, moved away and left 
 him to Mrs. Glanville. 
 
 While he talked to that lady, George was oddly 
 divided between pleasure and resentment. "It's a 
 trap," he said to himself; "she was sitting there 
 like a spider for a fly." For with belated percep-
 
 I 9 4 THE CATFISH 
 
 tion he was now aware that Mary's narrow eyes 
 had been on him the moment he entered the room. 
 "What does she want?" he said to himself. 
 
 " So," said Mrs. Glanville, sinking to a couch 
 and taking him down with a gesture, " you're Wal- 
 ter Tracy's son. But that's neither here nor there. 
 I love young men." 
 
 Three of her young men were present, now en- 
 gaged with Mary Festing and a " flapper ", whom 
 George understood to be Miss Glanville. 
 
 The effect of Mary Festing's presence upon 
 George was to give him extraordinary ease with 
 Mrs. Glanville; and accepting her dismissal of his 
 father as an invitation to be cheeky, he rattled on 
 about Cardigan Square and his cock-sure impres- 
 sions of London. Mrs. Glanville listened with huge 
 appreciation, though her occasional side-glance 
 might have meant that she could not quite reconcile 
 him with a previous description. That only pleased 
 him, though he was not clearly conscious of a de- 
 sire to show Mary Festing that she was wrong 
 about him. He felt that he had established the 
 right relations with Mrs. Glanville from the begin- 
 ning, and half wished that Mr. Shelmerdine were 
 there to hear him talk. 
 
 " Oh, you're perfectly gorgeous ! " said Mrs.
 
 THE CATFISH 195 
 
 Glanville, when he gave her a chance, in a tone 
 that might have meant anything " egregious," for 
 example. 
 
 George laughed and said: 
 
 " Now you know all about me, it's only fair " 
 
 " Oh, you must ask your father," said Mrs. Glan- 
 ville. " It's enough for you that I'm a lone widow, 
 with a daughter just married, and a son in the 
 navy quite big enough to keep you in order." 
 
 Her tone, combined with what she had said be- 
 fore, convinced him that she had found his father 
 as amusing as she seemed to find him. But he was 
 not now greatly curious about Mrs. Glanville; she 
 was good fun, and she seemed to attract pleasant 
 people. What he really wanted to know was where 
 Mary Resting came in. Evidently, from her dress, 
 she was not stopping in the house. But informa- 
 tion about her was not forthcoming, and nothing 
 would have induced him to ask questions. 
 
 The house indicated prosperity, if not wealth, 
 and a turn for hospitality. There were plenty of 
 books and magazines about, and the pictures were 
 of a sort that George supposed to be " good " ; 
 but comparing the atmosphere with that of Mrs. 
 Darragh's cottage, he would have said that culture 
 was here taken in the stride of a general alertness
 
 196 THE CATFISH 
 
 to life rather than indulged as an instinct. Look- 
 ing at Mrs. Glanville, he guessed that clothes in- 
 terested her more than anything ; he had never seen 
 anybody dressed quite so frankly. He could not 
 have said what the difference was, but by compari- 
 son, other women he had noticed seemed to want 
 to hide the fact that they had the shapes of women. 
 Mrs. Glanville's conversation seemed to go with 
 her clothes; it was not that she said anything out- 
 rageous, but she talked easily about things that, in 
 the mixed company he was accustomed to, were 
 tacitly avoided. She talked about music-halls, for 
 example, and told him a lot about a Spanish dancer 
 he had lately seen. If he had thought it out, he 
 would have said that people like Mrs. Glanville could 
 talk about bodies with as little embarrassment as 
 people like Darragh talked about souls. It was a 
 new experience to him, and he liked it. 
 
 He gathered that one of the young men was an 
 artist and the other two were Oxford undergradu- 
 ates. He had been told their names on introduction, 
 but the consciousness of Mary, and his revolt from 
 it into sharpening his wits against Mrs. Glanville's, 
 had prevented his taking them in. From the 
 noise they made, the young men seemed to be hav- 
 ing a good time with Mary and Miss Glanville,
 
 THE CATFISH 197 
 
 whose name he understood to be Dolly. Attracted 
 and amused as he was by Mrs. Glanville, George 
 could not help glancing in their direction; he was 
 curious to know what Oxford men were like, for 
 one thing. The result was that Mrs. Glanville said : 
 " But of course you want to talk to Mary." 
 
 He wanted nothing of the sort, but he was not 
 going to funk it. His approach altered the bal- 
 ance of the group, and after a violent appeal from 
 both sides Dolly and one of the undergraduates 
 were upholding common-sense against imagination 
 he was relegated with Mary to the unspeakable 
 ignominy of sitting on the fence. 
 
 George was acutely aware of the lurkingness of 
 Mary. Dressed in cool gray linen, in a manner 
 that he supposed to be artistic, she curved into her 
 chair, with hollow hands idle in her lap. The still- 
 ness of her made him aggressive, and he said 
 bluntly : 
 
 " Well, what are you doing? " 
 
 Mary said that she was writing. He felt, some- 
 how 7 , that it gave her an unfair advantage, though 
 he couldn't have said why. Half inclined to say: 
 " You were quite wrong ; I've never written any 
 poetry," he expressed the same idea by saying, 
 rather defiantly, " I'm banking."
 
 198 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Mary, and that made him 
 feel gratuitous. 
 
 "How are the Darraghs?" he said in a tone 
 that was meant to imply indifference to the subject. 
 
 Mary said that they were very well. " Miles is 
 coming up to London at Christmas to go to the 
 Slade," she added. 
 
 He didn't know what the Slade was, but he was 
 not going to betray curiosity, so he nodded intelli- 
 gently and said : 
 
 "Is Mrs. Darragh coming up, too?" 
 
 Mary said: "No, Miles is going into rooms." 
 She volunteered the information that she had rooms 
 in King's Road, Chelsea. George tried not to look 
 interested, but without success. The idea o<f a 
 young woman living alone in London was new to 
 him, though he had heard of such things as a symp- 
 tom of independence. He could not help looking 
 respectful as he said : 
 
 " I thought your people lived in London." 
 
 "So they do," said Mary, not x without a certain 
 complacency, " but we get on better apart." 
 
 He was not quite old enough to appreciate the 
 fact that Mary had not yet outgrown the conscious- 
 ness of her independence. The effect of her state- 
 ment was to make him want to swagger in his turn,
 
 THE CATFISH 199 
 
 and he began to talk in a man-of-the- world way 
 about the city. He was hoping that Mary would 
 ask him why he had given up Oxford; he would 
 have liked an opportunity to say something compas- 
 sionate about the two undergraduates, who were 
 still, so to speak, under discipline. But Mary was, 
 or pretended to be, interested in the city. George 
 knew all the time that when it came to bluffing he 
 was no match for her. At twenty-one she was a 
 woman, while he, with every assertion about his 
 masculine responsibilities and amusements, felt the 
 maternal supervision of Mrs. Dove. As if to rub 
 in the difference between them, Mary said: 
 
 "How's your mother?" 
 
 That took him unawares, and he had a vivid 
 picture of the scene in the nursery at Bourneside. 
 He felt himself blushing as he said that his mother 
 was very well. It seemed to him indelicate of 
 Mary to speak of his mother. Apart from that, 
 the reference reminded him of the present unsatis- 
 factory terms between his mother and himself. 
 Mary could know nothing about that, he had not 
 even told Darragh ; but he felt that she was looking 
 at him curiously. Though they had not met for 
 ten years, there was an obscure connection in his 
 mind between Mary and his mother that he could
 
 200 THE CATFISH 
 
 not analyze. He became shy and silent, and pres- 
 ently Mary rose to go. 
 
 George knew that he wanted to go with her. 
 Why, it was not clear; he wanted to have it out 
 with her, to assert himself somehow. But he could 
 not pluck up courage to say, " I'll come with 
 you," in the presence of other people, and so he 
 let her go away with the young artist, Mr. Lindrop, 
 who, he understood, also lived in Chelsea. 
 
 When Mary said good-by to Mrs. Glanville, 
 George caught himself listening against his will for 
 any remark that would throw light on her circum- 
 stances. He was curious to know whether or not 
 she had come with Mr. Lindrop, though he told 
 himself that it was not his business. But Mrs. 
 Glanville only said, " Well, at any rate, you've 
 had a good tea," and Mary said, " Oh, Mrs. Pin- 
 ney stuffs me like a pig " ; a remark that gave George 
 peculiar comfort, less on account of the stuffing 
 than because it seemed to him satisfactory that Mrs. 
 Glanville should know who Mrs. Pinney was. 
 
 After Mary had gone, Mrs. Glanville told him 
 that her poems and short stories were attracting 
 attention, and one of the undergraduates looked 
 very wise and said: "Oh, she's the real thing." 
 George would not ask where Mary's poems and
 
 THE CATFISH 201 
 
 short stories came out, but he made a mental note 
 of the magazines that were lying about the room. 
 He felt that he could not rise to Mrs. Glanville 
 now, and he declined her invitation to stop to 
 supper, though he promised to come again. Mrs. 
 Glanville was always at home on Sunday. 
 
 George walked across Kensington Gardens in a 
 mixture of emotions. He felt as if he had suddenly 
 grown up. The idea that he might be in love with 
 Mary Festing made him blush, and he said indig- 
 nantly, aloud, " I'm not " ; very much as he had 
 denied the accusation of writing poetry, in the 
 nursery at Bourneside. No, he argued, it was not 
 that, but Mary Festing reminded him that he was 
 now a man. From this time he began to keep Mrs. 
 Dove a little at a distance, and to sit in his own 
 room of an evening. It was absurd, he thought, 
 that a fellow of his age should not be in proper 
 diggings. 
 
 Whether or not because Mary had spoken of his 
 mother, and so reminded him of home, he began 
 to be bothered by the Bourne. Below the traffic 
 of the street he heard the older thunder of the 
 Waterfall. Then he happened to read somewhere 
 that the Serpentine was a relic of the Westbourne. 
 T'.'.at gave him a clue. Undoubtedly the hidden
 
 202 THE CATFISH 
 
 stream passed under Devonport Terrace. In Corn- 
 wall he had been told about " dowsers," and their 
 mysterious faculty for tracing water. He won- 
 dered if he had this faculty. Then the name 
 " Westbourne Grove " jumped into his mind with 
 occult significance. He dreamed of the Grove; 
 curved like the sickle moon, with hollow hands idle 
 in her lap, Mary floated past the tops of the fir- 
 trees and, moonlike, swayed some tide in his heart, 
 while somewhere his mother was crying happily. 
 He said to himself that if he had met Mary any- 
 where but in Devonport Terrace, over the hidden 
 Westbourne, he would not have been troubled in 
 this way. But all the time he knew that the trouble 
 was connected somehow with the fulfilment of his 
 nature. 
 
 George continued to go to Devonport Terrace. 
 He liked Mrs. Glanville; she gave him a feeling 
 of security that was not the security of ignorance.' 
 On one side she was delightfully worldly, and on 
 the other side she understood Mary. Sometimes 
 Mary was there, and supported by Mrs. Glan- 
 ville's jolly presence, he could meet her without 
 fear. He liked to see her sitting there in her lurk- 
 ing attitude, as if listening to the hidden stream, 
 and if ever she threatened to become embarrassing
 
 THE CATFISH 203 
 
 there was Mrs. Glanville to back him up easily in 
 his bluffing. 
 
 As against Mary, he and Mrs. Glanville took the 
 side of the world. Mrs. Glanville's husband had 
 been a stock-broker; she knew all about business, 
 and had traveled a great deal, with an intelligent 
 appreciation of the romantic side of things, but 
 a healthy enjoyment of the advantages of money. 
 She remembered the churches, but also the good 
 hotels. On the other hand, as the daughter of 
 a Somerset squire, she was well up in the associa- 
 tions of outdoor life, and took a keen interest in 
 sport. Mr. Shelmerdine was quite right about her 
 riding in the Row. It was in Somerset that she 
 had known Mr. Tracy. They had hunted together. 
 George never got to the bottom of the relation be- 
 tween them. Whenever he talked about his father 
 to Mrs. Glanville, she began to laugh, and once 
 she said : " He's got a bee in his bonnet, my dear." 
 The way she said it, with a mixture of amusement 
 and affectionate regret, made him feel how splen- 
 didly he had taken in Mrs. Glanville about himself. 
 Evidently she never suspected his queer feelings 
 about Mary. 
 
 He had written to his father about Mrs. Glanville 
 after her first visit to the bank. His father wrote
 
 204 THE CATFISH 
 
 in return : " How kind of Mrs. Glanville to look 
 you up. I remember her well; you will find her a 
 delightful companion. Please give her my kindest 
 regards." George got the impression that his father 
 must have bluffed Jane Marlow very much as he 
 himself was bluffing Mary Festing, only in a differ- 
 ent direction. 
 
 Dolly Glanville, who was seventeen, was a great 
 ally against Mary. She was no end of a swell at 
 mathematics, and was going up to Newnham when 
 she left school. Then there was her newly-married 
 sister, Mrs. Raymond, who sometimes came in with 
 her doctor husband from Wimpole Street. The 
 Raymonds had all the knowingness of a young 
 happily-married couple, intensified by a medical at- 
 mosphere. Between them all they kept Mary in 
 a minority of what they called soul fulness, and 
 held her up to affectionate derision. George, who 
 felt that in this company he could somehow have 
 it out with Mary Festing and still keep his own 
 confidence, joined in the chaffing. Mary took him 
 on his own terms, but occasionally, as if to remind 
 him of discretion, she would look at him out of 
 her narrow eyes and quietly say something that 
 got home upon the self he concealed. It was as 
 if she had a key to the side-door of his nature.
 
 THE CATFISH 205 
 
 He resented her possession of it, and said to him- 
 self that it would be all right when Darragh came 
 to London. Then he could push Mary off on 
 Darragh and still enjoy, as he undoubtedly did 
 enjoy, the strange thrill of her company. Darragh 
 would bring out, as the Glanvilles did not, and he 
 only at peril to himself, the side of Mary that against 
 his will he wanted. He could not work it out 
 clearly, but it seemed to him that Darragh would 
 act as a sort of lightning-conductor. 
 
 What Mrs. Glanville told him about Mary seemed 
 to confirm his early ideas about the parentage of 
 Indian children. When he said that he wondered 
 that Mary's parents let her live alone, Mrs. Glan- 
 ville said: " Which of them? " adding, with great 
 contempt, " They're glad enough to be rid of the 
 responsibility. They've got their own affairs." 
 George did not pursue the subject, though, remem- 
 bering what Mrs. Glanville had said about a good 
 tea, he was glad to hear that Mary's parents gave 
 her an allowance. He had already learned that 
 Mr. Lindrop was a person of no account so far 
 as Mary was concerned. Mary's relation to the 
 Glanvilles was easily explained; she and Dolly had 
 been schoolfellows. 
 
 George read some of Mary's poems and short
 
 2o6 THE CATFISH 
 
 stories. They went with his idea of her person- 
 ality; they seemed to lurk for you both in the 
 pages of magazines and in your mind afterward. 
 The poems were generally about landscape or 
 weather, and the stories about children. As George 
 put it, they told you nothing, but let out a lot, 
 and when you tried to say what it was, you couldn't, 
 except in the words of the poems or the stories. 
 Mary made him think about words; he found him- 
 self repeating: "Mary Festing, Chelsea." The 
 addition of the last word intensified the feeling 
 he had on hearing Mary's name for the first time. 
 It made her more remote than ever, and yet 
 strangely persistent, like the sighing of wind in 
 tree-tops on a summer afternoon, or the far-off 
 murmur of the sea. 
 
 Devonport Terrace became great fun in George's 
 relations with Mr. Shelmerdine. The latter was 
 not unduly inquisitive, but George's grown-upness 
 could not escape so sharp an observer. It amused 
 George to think how far Mr. Shelmerdine was from 
 the truth when he made knowing remarks about 
 Miss Glanville, for a protective instinct had made 
 George play up to him by volunteering a descrip- 
 tion of the Glanville household. George would not 
 have admitted that he was in love with Mary Fest-
 
 THE CATFISH 207 
 
 ing, but he knew that the lurking idea of her in 
 his mind must be surrounded by elaborate make- 
 believe about other people. He felt that he scored 
 over Mr. Shelmerdine as a man of the world by 
 the discovery of Mr. Shelmerdine's own little secret. 
 Tactful allusions had confirmed the truth of Mrs. 
 Glanville's description. 
 
 In September, George went home for a holiday. 
 It was then that he recognized how he had grown 
 up in the last few months, particularly in his ideas 
 about women. Even Amelia was now surrounded 
 by an atmosphere of mystery. Her little room over 
 the front door had become for him the most sacred 
 part of the house. There was a rose at one side 
 of the window and a jasmine at the other, so that 
 the room had all the character of a bower, and a 
 goldfinch built regularly in a little cypress on the 
 lawn immediately opposite the window. All this 
 now struck George as beautifully appropriate, 
 though he had never thought about it before, par- 
 ticularly when Amelia told him that in June a night- 
 ingale had sung in the shrubbery on the Side Lawn. 
 He pictured Amelia leaning on the window-sill in 
 her nightgown in the warm night, listening to the 
 bird. It was in one corner of the Lawn opposite 
 Amelia's window that George had fought Tom
 
 208 THE CATFISH 
 
 Burchell, and he now felt that in some unexplained 
 way his anger had been connected with his rever- 
 ence for women. Certainly his feelings about the 
 iris resembled his feelings about them. 
 
 He now treated Amelia with immense considera- 
 tion. It is to be feared that she did not rise to 
 his ideas about her, but larked with the young men 
 who came to play tennis in the most commonplace 
 way. She said that George had got frightfully 
 solemn since he had been in London. 
 
 With his mother, George was on rather harrow- 
 ing terms. She no longer complained, but made a 
 point of accepting the situation. Their positions 
 were now reversed. It was now George who 
 wanted to confide in her. He wanted to tell her 
 about Mary Festing. The reason, as he knew, was 
 partly selfish; he felt instinctively that, better 
 than anybody else, his mother could help him to 
 understand his feelings; but he said to himself 
 that his mother had liked Mary Festing and would 
 be glad to hear about her. But when he told his 
 mother that he had met Mary again, she said po- 
 litely : 
 
 " Oh, yes. She's a friend of the Darraghs, isn't 
 she?" 
 
 George hastened to assure her that this time he
 
 THE CATFISH 209 
 
 had met Mary independently of the Darraghs. He 
 reminded her that Mrs. Glanville was a friend of 
 his father's. 
 
 Mrs. Tracy laughed. " Yes, I know," she said, 
 "we have often talked about Miss Jane Marlow. 
 People used to tease your father about her; she 
 ran after him in the most barefaced way. Her 
 father, you know, was one of the biggest land- 
 owners in Somerset, and Jane would have got him 
 to do something for your father. But he had other 
 ideas. However, she seems to have got over it 
 all right. Evidently it was only a girlish infatua- 
 tion. Your father was very good-looking, you 
 know." 
 
 At one time all this would have interested George, 
 but he felt now that it was irrelevant. He said 
 that Mrs. Glanville was very kind to Mary Fest- 
 ing. 
 
 " Evidently she is a very good-natured woman," 
 said his mother. " It was kind of her to look you 
 up, and I hope you will take full advantage of her 
 hospitality. She must know all sorts of people who 
 might be useful to you in business." 
 
 George felt snubbed. He knew that his mother 
 did not care a snap for business. Once again he 
 said to himself that women were the devil. They
 
 210 THE CATFISH 
 
 never would accept the province in which they 
 might be of use to a fellow. At the same time, 
 he appreciated the humor of the situation. The 
 way his mother persisted in " seeing " Mrs. Glan- 
 ville was precisely the way he played up to Mrs. 
 Glanville in bluffing Mary Festing. Even if he 
 had wanted to, he could swear that he had not 
 bluffed his mother. She simply would not be 
 drawn. 
 
 George made other attempts to hold out the 
 olive-branch to his mother, but without result. She 
 was perfectly good-humored, and even affectionate, 
 but she would not now accept the confidence he 
 had hitherto denied her. Whenever he showed 
 signs of becoming confidential, she began to talk 
 about business; and once, when he artfully edged 
 in the subject of Mary Festing by repeating a con- 
 versation between the young people at Devonport 
 Terrace, his mother said: 
 
 " You seem to have great fun, but you mustn't 
 forget that you are learning to be a banker. I 
 shouldn't get too much mixed up with an artistic 
 set, if I were you. They are rather apt to play 
 instead of work." 
 
 He felt that it was aimed at Darragh, and that 
 froze him up. It was not that he was prepared to
 
 THE CATFISH 211 
 
 confess to a personal interest in Mary Festing, but 
 he wanted to talk round her, and he knew that a 
 year ago his mother would have welcomed such an 
 opportunity. 
 
 Gently but firmly repulsed by his mother, George 
 was drawn into still closer companionship with his 
 father. Here, at any rate, there was perfect con- 
 fidence as far as it went; for, as George knew, 
 there was a whole side of him that his father ig- 
 nored. Now that he had some practical acquaint- 
 ance with business, Mr. Tracy talked to him about 
 the affairs of the bank as well as about the land. 
 Old Walter cheerfully accepted the situation. For 
 him the bank was a legitimate occupation, and 
 Bourneside a pleasant home. Improvement in both 
 was to be welcomed as improving the family po- 
 sition, but he had no other ideas upon the subject. 
 Mr. Tracy was interested in George's observations 
 of London, though he did not interpret them in 
 quite the same way as George. His attitude to 
 the new spirit in business might be described as 
 stoical. He believed in sitting tight; particularly 
 in sitting tight upon the land. Honest finance and 
 the land were his remedies. George did not un- 
 derrate them, but he had an increasing belief that 
 something might still be done with commerce and
 
 212 THE CATFISH 
 
 manufacture. He did not see exactly how it was 
 to be done, but he was more and more convinced 
 that no serious attempt had yet been made to de- 
 velop them under the new conditions. 
 
 In his hours of leisure George renewed his alle- 
 giance to the landscape of his childhood. He took 
 long walks in every direction, clearing up little top- 
 ographical problems that had puzzled him, confirm- 
 ing some beliefs and exploding some illusions. But 
 with clearer knowledge, the sense of mystery re- 
 mained. Everything had now a deeper meaning 
 connected, not with the dreams of a child, but with 
 the emotions of a man. He was not prepared to 
 call it love, it was too complicated by the feeling 
 of resistance; but he observed, as a new thing, that 
 the Waterfall was the mingled destiny of two rivers, 
 and when he walked in the Grove he read into the 
 secret murmuring of the Bourne the words, " Mary 
 Festing, Chelsea."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DARRAGH came up to London in January. 
 One of the pleasures of his coming that 
 George had looked forward to was denied him, 
 because Darragh knew his way about London bet- 
 ter than he did. George was struck by the ex- 
 tremely practical way in which Darragh, whom he 
 had always regarded as a dreamer, managed his 
 affairs. He had half expected that Darragh would 
 settle in Chelsea, but Darragh said it was too far 
 from the Slade school, too dear and too dilettante. 
 He took a top room in Red Lion Square, nearly 
 opposite the house that Rossetti and William Morris 
 had lived in. 
 
 The first time George took Darragh to Devonport 
 Terrace he recognized the soundness of the vague 
 idea at the back of his mind. There was no need 
 to push Mary Festing off on Darragh. The latter 
 was quite civil to Mrs. Glanville, but he went at once 
 to Mary and talked to her most of the afternoon. 
 From the unalloyed pleasure that it gave him to 
 
 see them together, George knew that he could not 
 
 213
 
 214 THE CATFISH 
 
 be in love with Mary. He was not in the least 
 jealous, though he was a little envious. It must 
 be jolly to be able to talk to Mary about real things 
 without being embarrassed or having to play the 
 man of the world. 
 
 When they came away Darragh said something 
 to George about his not liking Mary. 
 
 "Oh, I like her all right," said George, "but 
 she's rather too clever for me." 
 
 " She's very simple," said Darragh. 
 
 George reflected that it was exactly her simplicity 
 that he was afraid of; she was always being simple 
 in unexpected places; but he did not say so. He 
 could not have put it clearly. 
 
 The situation created by Darragh's arrival pleased 
 him very well. Taking sides with Mrs. Glanville 
 had its disadvantages, because it kept Mary from 
 talking seriously. George liked Mary to talk seri- 
 ously so long as he did not have to take part in 
 the conversation. Darragh did that for him, and 
 George was quite content to listen or to say : " Yes, 
 that's what I mean." It did not worry him that 
 Mary evidently regarded him as rather a sheep. 
 He did not care what she thought about him so 
 long as she did not make him give himself away. 
 
 Nor was he disturbed when the Glanvilles pres-
 
 THE CATFISH 215 
 
 ently said that Darragh must be in love with Mary 
 Festing. It seemed natural. But something he 
 heard made a deeper impression on George than 
 he knew at the time. One Sunday afternoon in 
 April, when he left Devonport Terrace, Doctor Ray- 
 mond walked with him across the Gardens. Mary 
 and Darragh had previously gone away together 
 to Chelsea. Mrs. Raymond was about to have her 
 first baby and the young doctor was in a mood 
 both sentimental and physiological. With due re- 
 gard for the youth of his companion, he talked 
 remorsefully of the risks women had to run on 
 account of men. 
 
 " Of course, it's right," he said, " and I wouldn't 
 have my wife shirk her responsibilities. I see too 
 much of the misery caused by that sort of thing 
 let alone the duty to the race. But, after all, it's 
 easy enough to talk. We don't have to go through 
 it. I tell you what it is, Tracy, it makes a man 
 feel a selfish hound." 
 
 George murmured something sympathetic, though 
 he could not help feeling rather amused. Without 
 knowing the reason, he had observed that Mrs. 
 Glanville was inclined to be scornful of her son- 
 in-law that afternoon. Indeed, it was she who had 
 proposed that Doctor Raymond should accompany
 
 216 THE CATFISH 
 
 him, saying : " For Heaven's sake take him away, 
 George. He's getting on my nerves, and he'll only 
 be a nuisance to Carrie if he goes home." Now 
 that he understood the reason, George wondered 
 if husbands were always so illogical. He himself 
 had a sort of mind that accepts consequences from 
 the beginning, though he was prepared to admit 
 that it is easy enough to talk. 
 
 Doctor Raymond continued to talk about the sub- 
 ject nearest his heart, with illustrations both com- 
 forting and alarming, drawn from his experience. 
 George thought him rather tiresomely uxorious, but 
 he could not help feeling a little flattered by the 
 claim upon his sympathy. He asked intelligent 
 questions, and the subject gradually ascended from 
 the physiological to the psychological region, and 
 from the personal to the general. They discussed 
 the laws of attraction, with their mysteries and 
 complications, and presently Doctor Raymond said 
 something about " poor old Darragh." 
 
 George asked why Darragh was to be pitied, and 
 Doctor Raymond said : 
 
 " Well, anybody can see that he is strongly at- 
 tracted by Mary Festing." 
 
 George said that he thought that Mary was very 
 fond of Darragh, and Doctor Raymond said : " Yes,
 
 THE CATFISH 217 
 
 but not in the same way. Miss Festing will never 
 marry." 
 
 He went on to speak of natural celibates. To 
 the trained observer, he said, there were all sorts 
 of signs. In his opinion, Mary Festing was of the 
 vestal type. All her emotional life went into her 
 work. " Besides," he added, " I happen to know 
 her own ideas upon the subject. Women talk 
 among themselves just as we do, and she once told 
 my wife that the physical side of love repelled her. 
 ' Horrid,' was the expression she used." 
 
 At the time the information seemed to George 
 poetically right. It went with his own white 
 thoughts about Mary Festing; her association in 
 his mind with the sickle moon, the lurking cool- 
 ness of her verse and prose even with the sighing 
 remoteness of her name and place : " Mary Fest- 
 ing, Chelsea." Passion had never come into his 
 thoughts regarding her; the difference was that 
 henceforward she was definitely and beautifully set 
 apart from passion. What Doctor Raymond said 
 about Darragh did not concern him; he supposed 
 that Darragh thought about Mary Festing in the 
 same way that he did. 
 
 Soon after this conversation Darragh took George 
 to see Mary Festing in Chelsea. Mary had already
 
 218 THE CATFISH 
 
 given George a general invitation, but he had been 
 shy about visiting her alone, and had contented 
 himself with identifying the house in which she 
 lived, when he had been rather depressed by the 
 squalor of King's Road. It comforted him that 
 the house in which Mary lived was a little screened 
 from the road by trees. 
 
 Mary's rooms were at the top of the house. 
 A motherly-looking woman, whom Darragh greeted 
 familiarly as Mrs. Pinney, opened the front door, 
 upon the jamb of which were several little brass 
 name-plates. The prints and etchings upon the walls 
 of the narrow staircase seemed to indicate that the 
 owners of the names were artists. Mary opened 
 the door when Darragh knocked, and said, " Oh, 
 it's you, Miles," and then, with a slight change of 
 tone : " This is an honor, George." The impression 
 George received was that Mary was not very well 
 pleased to see him, and he was half sorry that he 
 had come. 
 
 He was glad, however, to see Mary's room. The 
 walls were white and bare, the ceiling sloped to 
 the windows, and a low couch covered with dark 
 blue serge made a severe pattern against the wall. 
 A Sheraton writing-table, another small table and 
 three chairs were all the furniture, and there were
 
 THE CATFISH 219 
 
 very few books. The only picture was a repro- 
 duction of Whistler's Mother, which, in its angu- 
 lar lines, seemed to sum up the character of the 
 room. With Doctor Raymond's conversation 
 fresh in his mind, however, George felt that the 
 atmosphere of the room was more like that of Ros- 
 setti's Ecce Ancilla Domini. 
 
 Mary sat upon the couch, with her hands in her 
 lap, bending a little forward. She looked very 
 thin and dark against the white wall, and in spite 
 of her stillness, very swift. They talked about 
 the Slade school. George had already learned that 
 Darragh had made a remarkable impression at the 
 school; he was talked about as a genius. Darragh 
 did not seem elated; his conversation was severely 
 practical. He was critical of the methods of teach- 
 ing. It was as if he knew exactly what he needed 
 to learn, and meant to have his own way. George 
 envied him his quiet confidence. Mary's questions 
 about the school, though she neither drew nor 
 painted, sounded practical, too. George knew that 
 he was listening to the conversation of real pro- 
 fessionals; people to whom art was a matter of 
 precise knowledge. He was beginning to feel that 
 artists were the only people who really understood 
 their business. In passing, Mary's manner to Dar-
 
 220 THE CATFISH 
 
 ragh reminded him of Eleanor Markham's to him- 
 self in his childhood with the difference that 
 Mary seemed satisfied. 
 
 With Darragh between them he felt oddly at ease 
 with Mary. If she had suddenly begun to talk 
 about the scene in the nursery at Bourneside he 
 would not have been in the least embarrassed. He 
 could have told her why she ought to have been 
 a Servian princess, and why he had given in to 
 Walter so easily. " Don't you see," he would 
 have said, "that it was no use arguing? They 
 would not have understood. We were talking a 
 different language." . He could almost have told 
 Mary why he had fought Tom Burchell about the 
 broken iris. In this company it would have been 
 a commonplace to say : " It was a crime upon 
 beauty." 
 
 He knew that Mary understood him as nobody 
 else did, not even himself. He could hide nothing 
 from her. She asked Darragh questions, but she 
 did not ask him questions. She took him for 
 granted, as if she said : " You can wait." But 
 if she called him he would have to come, wherever 
 he was; he would have to do whatever she told 
 him to do. He half enjoyed, half resented her 
 power.
 
 THE CATFISH 221 
 
 At present she would let him alone. He knew 
 by instinct that she was not dissatisfied at his be- 
 ing in the bank. The only thing she said that 
 sounded like a reproof was : " You have not been 
 to see Eleanor Markham." 
 
 She said it, fixing her dark eyes on him with 
 quiet assurance, so that he dismissed the idea of 
 excusing himself by saying that he did not know 
 where Eleanor Markham lived, though it was true. 
 He knew that Mrs. Markham was dead, and Rose 
 married, and that Eleanor kept house for her father 
 somewhere near London. Mary now told him that 
 the Markhams lived at Holmhurst, in Surrey. 
 
 " They have a most beautiful garden," she said. 
 " I am going down there on Saturday." 
 
 It was only then that George felt a return of 
 self-consciousness. To sit with Mary and Darragh 
 in a room was one thing; to sit with Mary and 
 Eleanor Markham in a beautiful garden quite an- 
 other. But he said that he would go to see the 
 Markhams. 
 
 When Mrs. Pinney brought tea she embarrassed 
 George by asking him if he did not think that Mary 
 looked well. " Mr. Darragh would never notice," 
 she said compassionately, "he's one of the same 
 sort, he is. But you look as if you treated your
 
 222 THE CATFISH 
 
 stomach proper and went out. You should take 
 Miss Festing on the river." 
 
 "Don't frighten him, Mrs. Pinney," said Mary 
 with mock gravity, and George wondered exactly 
 what she meant. He was afraid she was getting 
 at him. 
 
 After Mrs. Pinney had gone he found himself 
 talking about Mrs. Dove and Cardigan Square. 
 But not as he talked about them to Mrs. Glanville. 
 He told Mary and Darragh about Mrs. Dove's pa- 
 thetic memorials of her better days, and how she 
 loved the queen. He believed that just as good 
 people were supposed to be always ready to meet 
 God, so Mrs. Dove lived as if at any moment she 
 might be called upon to receive the queen in Cardi- 
 gan Square. Then there was Mr. Mahon : how he 
 went to mass, and his sensitiveness about the army, 
 as if he felt that he had been an unworthy soldier. 
 George wished that he could ask Mary to Cardigan 
 Square, but he did not quite see how it could be 
 managed. Darragh had already been there and 
 had won Mrs. Dove's heart by praising her draw- 
 ings. 
 
 When the two young men came away Darragh 
 spoke of Mary's unhappy life with her parents. 
 He said that there was nothing to choose between
 
 THE CATFISH 223 
 
 them, and if George had reflected he might have 
 seen that there was a good reason why so young 
 a girl should hastily decide that one aspect of life 
 was " horrid ". 
 
 Through Darragh and Mary, George became 
 acquainted with the literary and artistic world of 
 London. He quickly saw that it was not his world, 
 and he was glad that some instinct had warned him 
 that his talents were not in the direction of art 
 or literature. He saw that a great many of the 
 people in that world were there by mistake, and 
 that it was upon their uneasy efforts to feel at 
 home that most of the common sayings about the 
 artistic temperament were based. Real artists like 
 Mary and Darragh were very practical. The ar- 
 tistic temperament was all right if you had enough 
 of it, but a little was disturbing and led to all 
 sorts of affectations. 
 
 There was Mr. Lindrop, for example. At first 
 George had supposed that Mr. Lindrop must be a 
 very great artist, because he looked so romantic 
 and was always talking about imagination. His 
 studio was full of beautiful things, and there were 
 always a lot of young women about. Mr. Lindrop 
 sang to them and talked to them about their clothes 
 under pink shaded lights with pastilles burning on
 
 224 THE CATFISH 
 
 Moorish tables. George thought Mr. Lindrop's 
 pictures rather weak, and yet they pleased him. 
 When he spoke to Darragh about them, Darragh 
 said: 
 
 " Oh, Lindrop is a duffer, but he has an exquisite 
 sense of color. He thinks that by sticking wings 
 on a figure or putting the head on one side you 
 make it poetical. If he would leave the figure 
 alone and stick to still-life, he might do charming 
 things." 
 
 Looking at Mr. Lindrop's pictures again, George 
 saw that it was the color that had pleased him. 
 He observed Mr. Lindrop holding a piece of green 
 silk against a girl's hair, and the tantalizing thought 
 came into his mind that there was a real use for 
 Mr. Lindrop somewhere if one could only think 
 of it. 
 
 George found that his life was getting fuller of 
 such tantalizing thoughts. It was partly, no doubt, 
 due to his not yet having found his own game, 
 but wherever he went he was bothered by the idea 
 of waste, of people doing things indifferently while 
 their real capabilities were being neglected. His 
 conversations with Darragh and Shelmerdine, who 
 were his two most intimate companions, often 
 turned on the subject. Darragh said he didn't
 
 THE CATFISH 225 
 
 know about that, and Shelmerdine said that the 
 reason was economical. The word made George 
 laugh, and Shelmerdine became argumentative. 
 
 " You've got a lot of ideas, old chap," he said, 
 " but you don't understand business. First of all, 
 a thing's got to be made to pay, to give a good 
 return on capital." 
 
 "Well, how are you going to make it pay?" 
 said George. 
 
 " That's a large order," said Shelmerdine, " but 
 advertising goes a long way. Make people see 
 that they're getting good value for their money. 
 That's why concerns are getting bigger and bigger. 
 The small firms can't afford to advertise, and so 
 they go under." 
 
 At the time George was not prepared to argue, 
 but he was inwardly convinced that Shelmerdine 
 had no idea how things were done, except from 
 the point of view of the investor. That presently 
 gave him a clue to some of the problems that were 
 bothering him. One result of concerns getting 
 bigger and bigger was a separation of interests. It 
 was not merely a separation between capital and 
 labor; it was a separation between the financial and 
 executive sides of things. One set of people of 
 different grades did the work, and another set of
 
 226 THE CATFISH 
 
 people provided the money. It was the financiers 
 who called the tune. They controlled the adver- 
 tisements and decided what the public wanted. 
 Practically, they decided what the public should 
 have. 
 
 That explained something that had often puzzled 
 him. Wherever he went, into shops, to the theater, 
 in the train, he was struck by the fact that people 
 were better than their jobs. They could do better 
 work than they did. On the other hand, he heard 
 nothing but grumbling from the public: rotten 
 boots, beastly beer, silly play, abominable train 
 service. Now he thought he saw the reason. Be- 
 tween the people who could do better work and 
 the public that wanted better things stood the finan- 
 cial person who controlled the concern. 
 
 Half consciously, he began to make observations. 
 There was that question of advertising, for ex- 
 ample. At best it was directed toward overcom- 
 ing resistance instead of encouraging an instinctive 
 demand. But that was not the worst. In many 
 cases it must actually increase the resistance. Bad 
 as things were, they were not nearly so bad as the 
 advertisements made out. Pictures on the hoard- 
 ings assured him that only the most imbecile or 
 offensive people could tolerate somebody's collars,
 
 THE CATFISH 227 
 
 clothes, tobacco, play, or whatever it might be; 
 but when by accident, ignorance or laziness he was 
 induced to try the article, he found that often 
 enough it was not half bad. Indeed, the first step 
 toward buying anything was overcoming the prej- 
 udice against it created by the advertisement. 
 George could not believe that he was singular in 
 this respect; he knew he was not. When, down 
 in Chelsea, he talked to some of the artists who 
 made the pictures on the hoardings he found that 
 they shared his opinion. But when he asked them 
 why they did not draw more attractive people they 
 said : " My dear chap, they won't have them ; 
 that's their idea of the public " " they " meaning 
 the people who commissioned the writing of the ad- 
 vertisements. 
 
 The subject fascinated him, and he found that it 
 worked out in all sorts of curious ways. If, on his 
 way to the Mansion House, he was faced by the 
 contents-bills of two evening papers, and one said: 
 "Blank Case: Result," and the other: "Blank 
 found Guilty," he found that he always instinc- 
 tively bought the second. When he came to rea- 
 son it out he found that it was because he un- 
 consciously assumed that the paper that made no 
 secret of its news must be the better worth reading.
 
 228 THE CATFISH 
 
 The other traded on an uncertainty, which could 
 be settled at a glance. Altogether newspapers 
 were an interesting study. Generally they were 
 bad, and their readers despised them; and yet the 
 men who wrote for them were extraordinarily capa- 
 ble. Talking to these men, George learned that edi- 
 tors were getting less and less power, and managers 
 who represented the financial side more and 
 more. Everything seemed to confirm George's be- 
 lief that the real Old Man of the Sea on the back 
 of modern industry was the financial person. It 
 was true that he found the money, but he also 
 prevented its being used to the best advantage, 
 chiefly because he relied on generalizations about 
 the public. The people who did the work or who 
 came in personal contact with the customer knew 
 and could do better, but they were not allowed to 
 make use of their knowledge and powers. When- 
 ever George remembered Shelmerdine's use of the 
 word " economical " he laughed aloud. 
 
 As yet his observations were analytical and de- 
 structive, but he felt that presently they would be- 
 come synthetical and constructive. How he did 
 not know; he certainly did not feel drawn to any 
 particular branch of commerce or manufacture, and 
 he knew that until he found his game he could
 
 THE CATFISH 229 
 
 not make practical use of his observations. The 
 only thing he felt sure about was that he was more 
 interested in the way things were done than in the 
 way money was invested.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MRS. GLANVILLE attended to his social edu- 
 cation. She took him about and gave him 
 introductions to all sorts of people. He got to 
 know, not only Bayswater, but something of the 
 solemn squares to the eastward and the more modest 
 fringes of Mayfair and Westminster. Kensington 
 he learned through Mrs. Dove, and with Darragh 
 he explored Bloomsbury and Chelsea. Shelmerdine 
 and Tom Burchell brought him in touch with other 
 worlds. He found them all interesting and amus- 
 ing, and in them all he preserved a certain detach- 
 ment. He had no more found his world than he 
 had found his game. But though he did not give 
 himself away, he was a sympathetic listener, and 
 people told him what they wanted, as distinct from 
 what they were supposed to want. He heard what 
 they really thought about the plays, newspapers, 
 restaurants and shops that they supported for want 
 of something better, and he came to the conclu- 
 sion that nearly all the generalizations about the 
 public taste were untrue. 
 
 250
 
 THE CATFISH 231 
 
 Every now and then he came upon something 
 being done, generally in a small way, about as well 
 as it could be done. From the first he had been 
 struck by Mrs. Glanville's clothes, and he learned 
 that she was considered to be a very well-dressed 
 woman. Men in particular admired her; they 
 didn't know what it was, but she always looked 
 smart. Mrs. Glanville encouraged George to notice 
 her clothes; she said it was part of a liberal educa- 
 tion. He always supposed that she got them in 
 Paris, but one day when he said so, she laughed 
 and said: 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Promise you won't tell ? " 
 
 He said that he wouldn't, and she said: 
 
 " From Kate Flanders, a little person in Hanover 
 Square. Would you like to meet her ? " 
 
 George laughed, and said that he wasn't particu- 
 larly keen about it, but Mrs. Glanville said : 
 
 " It'll be an experience. I daren't take you there, 
 because Kate Flanders hates men with an exceeding 
 bitter hatred. That's what makes her an artist. 
 But I'll ask her to tea, and you shall come in by 
 accident." 
 
 When he saw Kate Flanders, George understood 
 that " little person " referred to her condition and 
 not her size. She was tall and slight, with the
 
 232 THE CATFISH 
 
 most tragic face he had ever seen. She made him 
 understand what was meant by " a wreck of a 
 woman," though she was good-looking, and if he 
 had met her in the street he would have supposed 
 her to be insane. To himself he called her " Me- 
 dusa." 
 
 At first she was hostile, and he could hear her 
 cup chattering in the saucer as her hands trembled 
 with suppressed anger, but he was tactfully dis- 
 interested and presently Mrs. Glanville got her to 
 talk. Kate Flanders struck him as remarkably 
 cynical. With slow venomous articulation, she 
 talked about some of her customers. It seemed 
 to him that she knew and with cold calculation 
 played upon every strange instinct that had ever 
 been aroused in him by the bodies of women. 
 What he had feared and suppressed she made the 
 basis of her art. He was repelled and yet curiously 
 interested. 
 
 When she had gone, with a malignant bow to him 
 that he felt was not personally intended, but due 
 to his sex, Mrs. Glanville said: 
 
 " I believe the odd creature rather liked you. 
 What I wanted you to see was that Kate Flanders 
 really does ' dress to kill '. If she didn't do it 
 that way, upon my word I believe she would do it
 
 THE CATFISH 233 
 
 with a knife or bombs." George asked the reason, 
 but Mrs. Glanville said : " Kate's history is simply 
 not to be told. What you see is the result. I'm 
 lucky enough to be one of her favorites, chiefly, I 
 believe, because she thinks I'm not quite respectable. 
 She dresses Maude Stuart, you know. If you were 
 happily married and took your wife to her, Kate 
 would be quite capable of wilful botching." 
 
 " That's why she's only a little person, I sup- 
 pose," said George. 
 
 "Not altogether," said Mrs. Glanville. "You 
 see, with the rent she has to pay, she can't afford 
 to do much advertising, and it's selfish, of course 
 her customers naturally don't advertise for her." 
 
 George said he was surprised that none of the big 
 firms had snapped up Miss Flanders, but Mrs. Glan- 
 ville said: 
 
 " They're too stupid, my dear man. And if 
 they did, they wouldn't have the sense to give her 
 a free hand. Kate under orders would be just 
 ordinary. It would be like telling a soldier to kill, 
 but not allowing him to aim straight." 
 
 It all jumped with George's general ideas, and 
 he put Kate Flanders away in his mind along with 
 Mr. Lindrop as a tantalizing problem. The asso- 
 ciation amused him.
 
 234 THE CATFISH 
 
 Altogether, George was having a very full and 
 interesting life in London. He was getting on well 
 at the bank, though Mr. Baldwin didn't know what 
 to make of him. It was almost a grievance to 
 Mr. Baldwin that a young man who didn't take 
 banking seriously should be punctual, careful and 
 methodical. Shelmerdine was clearly convinced 
 that George was what he called a " boy-oh," and 
 his attitude to him was " You might tell a fellow." 
 Mr. Spaull predicted that George would yet return 
 to the simple life. 
 
 Friendly as he remained with Darragh, George 
 did not see him very often. Darragh was working 
 hard, and he had his own set, which included Mary 
 Festing. Sometimes George had the odd idea that 
 a part of himself was in Darragh's and Mary's 
 keeping; a part that he didn't need in his ordinary 
 occupations and amusements. It was as if they 
 took it out at intervals and talked about it rather 
 regretfully. At least that was the impression he 
 got when he met them together. Then he was 
 conscious of a slight check to his well-being, and 
 he was inclined to say: " Bother Mary Festing! " 
 She reminded him of the uncomfortable person who 
 said " Remember ! " He could never get rid of 
 the idea that Mary knew everything he did. It
 
 THE CATFISH 235 
 
 was not that he wanted to do anything wrong, but 
 the consciousness of an unseen watcher coming upon 
 him in mixed company was apt to be sobering. It 
 made him unaccountably dry up. 
 
 George had the usual temptations of a healthy, 
 high-spirited young man more or less at large in 
 London, and he knew that what kept him straight 
 was less his own virtue, or the material supervision 
 of Mrs. Dove, than the idea of Mary Festing. He 
 had no wish to go wrong, but he a little resented 
 the idea that he couldn't if he wished. He said to 
 himself : " She's nothing to me," very much as in 
 childhood he had been prompted to throw sticks at 
 the Waterfall. 
 
 He had kept his promise of going to see Eleanor 
 Markham, and at intervals repeated the visit. Each 
 time he went rather unwillingly, as from a sense 
 of duty, but each time he was glad he had gone, 
 because he felt renewed, as if he had been dipped 
 in the waters of youth. Mr. Markham was now 
 very infirm, and Eleanor devoted her life to him. 
 George understood from Mary that when Mr. 
 Markham died, Eleanor would go into a convent, 
 and this confirmed his boyish impression that she 
 was like the Holy Women. At first he had been 
 a little afraid that Eleanor would talk to him about
 
 236 THE CATFISH 
 
 religion, which would have been embarrassing, be- 
 cause, without any definite loss of faith, his re- 
 ligious ideas were now in a rather chaotic condition. 
 A great many things that were not religious at all 
 came into them. Mary Festing was one, and she 
 was certainly not religious at any rate, not in 
 Eleanor Markham's way. 
 
 But Eleanor Markham did not talk to him about 
 religion. She sat in a garden looking toward the 
 hills, as if it were near the end of the world, and 
 talked to him with quiet humor about his life in 
 London. Without being critical, she seemed to re- 
 duce things to order, as if she viewed them from a 
 little height. Eleanor was the only person to whom 
 George spoke about his mother. She said : " Be 
 patient with her; love has many disguises." He 
 felt, somehow, that the remark was intended to 
 bear a wider application than the immediate one. 
 
 George had not yet been out of England, but 
 during his third year in London Darragh asked 
 him to go to Paris. This was in May, and conse- 
 quently the matter would need some arrangement. 
 Mr. Baldwin had no objection to his taking his 
 holidays thus early in the year, but George thought 
 that he had better write to his father. His mother 
 answered the letter. She wrote more affectionately
 
 THE CATFISH 237 
 
 than usual. His father left the matter entirely in 
 Mr. Baldwin's hands, and she was glad that George 
 was going to see something of the world. She 
 herself had been to Paris on her honeymoon, and 
 it had been May. He was to take particular note 
 of the Madeleine Church and the Cemetery of 
 Pere Lachaise, because she remembered them well. 
 In her happiness at her marriage, she had laid a 
 flower out of her wedding- wreath upon the tomb 
 of Abelard and Heloise. At the end of her letter 
 she spoke of not having been very well lately. Doc- 
 tor Fleetwood did not think it was anything serious, 
 but recommended the sea, and they were going to 
 Clevedon in June. It was a long time since she 
 had been to the sea. In a postscript she sent her 
 love to Miles. He must come down to Bourneside 
 before long. 
 
 Something in the tone of his mother's letter made 
 George hesitate. He felt that she wanted him, but 
 did not care to say so directly. He was half in- 
 clined to show the letter to Darragh, and when, 
 afterward, he came to consider the reason why he 
 did not, he knew that it was because he was afraid 
 that Darragh would say: " Go to her." Darragh 
 never made mistakes about feeling. At the time 
 George reassured himself; if his mother had been
 
 238 THE CATFISH 
 
 seriously unwell, his father would have written. 
 Still, he was uncomfortably reminded of the trem- 
 bling shadow of her face on the wall, and he said 
 to himself that the next time he went home he 
 would ask her forgiveness for his boyish hardness. 
 He could explain now what had caused it. 
 
 The two young men put up at a quaintly-named 
 Hotel des Ecoles Coloniales et d'Architecture in a 
 narrow street off the Boulevard Montparnasse. 
 George sent the address home at once, and for the 
 first two days in Paris he rather tried Darragh's 
 patience by returning to the hotel at intervals to 
 see if there were any letters for him. None came, 
 and in the novelty of his surroundings he began to 
 make light of his apprehensions. But on the fourth 
 day he came in at eleven o'clock in the morning 
 to find a letter from his father. His mother had 
 had a slight paralytic seizure. She was conscious, 
 however, and Doctor Fleetwood had good hopes of 
 her recovery. But the almost apologetic suggestion 
 that he should come home told George that his 
 father was anxious, and he immediately made prep- 
 arations to catch the midday train. Darragh in- 
 sisted on coming with him, and on the heart-breaking 
 journey tried to reassure him by saying that if 
 there had been any change for the worse, Mr. Tracy
 
 THE CATFISH 239 
 
 would have wired. He pointed out that the seizure 
 had taken place on the very day they left London. 
 But George was not comforted. In everything he 
 saw his father's practical mind. He would prepare 
 him while there was yet time; but if it were too late, 
 he would see the tragic futility of despatching a 
 telegram. 
 
 George was right. When they reached Cardigan 
 Square, he found, not a telegram, but a letter to 
 tell him that his mother died the day before. " I 
 knew you would come at once," wrote his father, 
 " and I wished to spare you the blow in a strange 
 place." 
 
 George read the letter in the presence of Mrs. 
 Dove and Darragh. He gave it to the former with- 
 out speaking, and walked out of' the room and 
 aimlessly up to his bedroom. He could not cry. 
 After a moment he went down-stairs again, and 
 going up to Darragh in the dining-room, put his 
 hands on his shoulders and said : " I'm sorry, old 
 chap." At the time he did not know why he did 
 this, but afterward he knew that it was because 
 Darragh was the cause of his going to Paris. Mrs. 
 Dove put her arms about him, and he instinctively 
 kissed her, but he did not cry. Then he heard 
 the sound of Mr. Mahon's latch-key at the front
 
 240 THE CATFISH 
 
 door, and left the room again. All his thoughts 
 were upon the surface of a central deadness. 
 
 Darragh followed him up-stairs and reminded him 
 that there was a train from Paddington at nine 
 o'clock. His mother was to be buried in the morn- 
 ing. At first George felt disinclined to go. " I 
 can't tell her now," he said. 
 
 But Darragh said : " They will be expecting you," 
 and then it seemed to George that the susceptibilities 
 of other people had become immensely important. 
 
 Darragh went with him to Paddington. The 
 only thing George said to him on the way was: 
 " At any rate, she sent her love to you." He could 
 not get it out of his head that Darragh was the 
 person to be pitied, and he hoped that he would 
 not break down. 
 
 But Darragh did not break down. He said gen- 
 tly, " Yes, give her mine " ; and George said that he 
 would, adding that he wished they had had time to 
 go to Pere Lachaise. 
 
 For the first part of the train journey to Barstow 
 George was alone with a heart that was too numb 
 for grief, but at Reading a young man got into his 
 compartment. He was thin, dark and clean- 
 shaved, and extraordinarily restless. From his ap- 
 pearance he might have been a bookmaker or a
 
 THE CATFISH 241 
 
 music-hall actor. He changed his seat, closed and 
 opened the window, shuffled his feet, whistled and 
 snapped his fingers. Presently, as if in despera- 
 tion, he began to talk, making little foolish jokes, 
 with puns and wilful mispronunciations. George 
 bore him in a dazed sort of way, answering his 
 questions at random; but at last, in a crisis of 
 nerves, told him to shut up. The effect was greater 
 than he intended. The very mobile face of the 
 young man went through a dozen changes of ex- 
 pression: resentment, surprise, perplexity and ab- 
 ject humiliation. At another time George would 
 have been amused, but now he was deeply touched. 
 With clairvoyant sympathy he understood that the 
 creature who now stammered a servile apology had 
 been unable to bear his own company. It was the 
 first time George had been made to realize the terror 
 of loneliness. He put out his hand and murmured 
 something, he knew not what, but the young man 
 was only alarmed, and at the first stopping-place 
 removed himself. 
 
 The last local train had gone when George reached 
 Barstow, but he was able to cover part of his 
 journey by tram-car. With a dead heart in his 
 breast, he fancied that the few passengers looked 
 at him compassionately. It was as if he had only
 
 242 THE CATFISH 
 
 just discovered the human brotherhood that lies be- 
 neath the indifference of individuals. Even the boy 
 conductor who put him off at the journey's end in 
 an unfinished suburb did so reluctantly, as if he 
 were loath to commit a fellow creature to the night 
 from the warm lamplight of the car. 
 
 When beyond the farthest lamp the sweet May 
 night embraced him, with stealing odors and the 
 sighing of trees, George at last knew grief. It 
 was as if he had come back to childhood after 
 long wandering among strangers, and with every 
 turn of the familiar road the sense of loss was 
 deepened. But since the loss was altogether his, 
 while his mother was at rest, his tears flowed easily 
 and brought relief. Once more he was a child 
 going crying to his mother. From some far peace 
 she smiled at him with the half-amused tender- 
 ness that mothers give to the sorrows of childhood. 
 
 Long before he came within sound of the Water- 
 fall, he could make out the dark lift of the Down 
 where the church lay. It seemed to him that a 
 mild light shone from the church. At first he 
 thought it must be fancy, but as he drew nearer 
 he saw that the light was real. 
 
 Then he understood. Following custom, they 
 would have taken his mother to the church, and
 
 THE CATFISH 243 
 
 Walter or Amelia would keep vigil. That relieved 
 him of what in the sanctity of his grief had been a 
 vexation: the necessity of speech with the living. 
 Now he could go to his mother in the church. 
 
 Even the Waterfall seemed hushed, as if not to 
 betray him as he moved quickly under the long 
 dark wall of the sleeping house. Now he was 
 walking beside the Bourne, and the church was 
 hidden by the hanging wood that presently would 
 become the harp of dawn. 
 
 It was long past midnight when he came to the 
 church. He opened the jarring gate and passed 
 up the long path in an odor of yew. Then he 
 saw that the dim light that he had seen from afar 
 glowed through the window of the Resurrection, 
 and he was strangely comforted. But when he en- 
 tered the porch and gently turned the heavy ring 
 of the door, he found that the door was locked. 
 Fancying he heard a frightened movement within, 
 he desisted. If Amelia were there alone at this 
 hour of the night, she would naturally be alarmed. 
 
 The strange thing was that, after the first dis- 
 appointment, he was not unduly grieved at finding 
 the door locked against him. It seemed to him 
 somehow just that even at the last he should be 
 kept from the full confidence that he had denied
 
 244 THE CATFISH 
 
 his mother. He could fancy her knowing him there 
 and smiling almost mischievously in her coffin; as 
 when in childhood he had been stood in the corner, 
 she had smiled at him because, though the immediate 
 offense was expiated by tears, the time for official 
 pardon was not yet come. A certain playfulness 
 in the strict observance of rules had always been 
 her strongest hold upon him. In the nearness that 
 he now felt, the locked door was only a light for- 
 mality. 
 
 After an interval he tried the door again, and 
 murmured " Amelia " against the wood, but, re- 
 ceiving no answer, came to the conclusion that his 
 mother was really alone. That pleased him, and 
 he now felt almost happy. Being very tired, he 
 lay down on the thick rough mat in the porch, 
 with his head against the door, and half dozed, 
 with light dreams in which the sense of communi- 
 cation was intensified. Soon after three he woke, 
 to find that the space of sky framed by the outer 
 arch of the porch had lightened. One lark began 
 to sing from an infinite height, and then another, 
 until several were raining down their music, and 
 very soon cuckoos began to call in the distance. 
 Enchanted by the beauty of the morning, he rose 
 to stretch his chilled limbs, and walked a little
 
 THE CATFISH 245 
 
 way up the road. The night was lifting like a gray 
 curtain, and in the young light an abandoned quarry 
 took on the dignity of a mountain landscape. Be- 
 low, great elms stood mistily in the green fields, and 
 the white road curved among the folds of the land 
 like a river of dreams. Here and there smoke rose 
 from chimneys. Close at hand the keen air was 
 full of the scent of lilacs from a garden, and of 
 white broom which grew along the edges of the 
 quarry. 
 
 Since he was last here an extension of the railway 
 had been opened behind the church, and the sharp 
 contrast between old and new seemed, somehow, 
 in keeping with his mood. At the very edge of the 
 line a gray farmhouse, with high gables and the 
 characteristic Severnshire chimneys, stood among 
 tall still poplars. In the distance he heard a train, 
 and he waited by the new bridge until it came 
 rushing by, hot life in that exquisite hour. It re- 
 minded him that life went on, and he knew that 
 his life was to be more gravely happy than before. 
 He had learned the meaning of " Too late," with 
 its moral for the future. 
 
 When he returned to the church the window of 
 the Resurrection had paled, but its assurance was 
 in his heart. He waited contentedly in the awaken-
 
 246 THE CATFISH 
 
 ing day until, as he expected, Walter and Amelia 
 came up with Mr. Mostyn to early celebration. 
 They wondered to see him there, but in that at- 
 mosphere explanations were soon made. Mr. 
 Mostyn had not allowed Amelia to watch after mid- 
 night. 
 
 Admitted at last to the presence of his mother, 
 George knew that he must not feel remorse. On 
 either side of the flower-covered coffin the great 
 candles burned low and pale, but steadily. It was 
 as if she smiled. In the vicarious communion he 
 knew that the official pardon had been given ; there 
 was a deeper peace between them than when they 
 had shared the elements together. 
 
 Everything that followed was unimportant and 
 easy to be borne. His active peace was answered 
 by the stoicism of his father, and the imperative 
 necessity of food redeemed the banality of break- 
 fast. They broke bread together. It seemed to 
 George that whatever emotion his father felt was 
 expressed in the vertical line between his brows; 
 cut now as if with a chisel. From his father he 
 learned that his mother's death was entirely un- 
 expected. Her letter, with its faint appeal and 
 message to Darragh, as if she were gathering up 
 the ends of things, must have been inspired by a
 
 THE CATFISH 247 
 
 premonition; Mr. Tracy did not even know that 
 she had spoken to George of being unwell. 
 
 It was only at the very end that George broke 
 down utterly. The falling of earth on the coffin, 
 the material reminder of irrevocable parting, 
 knocked at his heart, and he began to sob hyster- 
 ically. His father, standing motionless, with the 
 line deepening between his brows as he stared 
 across the grave, put his arm about him. In the 
 pressure of it George felt support craved rather than 
 given, and that steadied him. For the first time 
 in his life he knew that he was needed.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FEELING that his father wanted him at home, 
 and finding that Walter had the same idea, 
 George engineered an exchange with one of the 
 Barstow clerks, without the appearance of making 
 a sacrifice. He was struck by the alteration in 
 his father. Outwardly he kept up the stoical 
 demeanor that made him look like a Norse hero, 
 but some inner support seemed lacking. He was, 
 in the old phrase, " a stricken man." Husband and 
 wife had never been demonstrative in their af- 
 fection, there was little real understanding between 
 them, and she was by far the weaker of the two; 
 and yet after her death the strong man gradually 
 declined. He had been dependent on her in 
 ways that he knew nothing about. His one wish 
 now seemed to be to gather his family about 
 him. George observed that, though he made no 
 alteration in his habits in respect of religion, he 
 was very anxious that nothing should interfere with 
 the religious exercises of his children. It was his 
 offering upon the altar of memory. 
 
 248
 
 THE CATFISH 249 
 
 At first George found the change into provincial 
 life amusing. It was all so complete, so highly 
 graded and organized; so under the eye at once, 
 like the life of a small principality. Barstow had 
 grown, and the sharp division between town and 
 country was dissolving in a ring of suburbs, in which 
 the amenities flourished. Cleeve, on its high Down 
 to the westward, still maintained a special character, 
 by reason of a retired military population attracted 
 by the waters and the college, and beyond Bourne- 
 side there was still the county; but, partly through 
 associations formed by the younger generation at 
 the college and the high schools, Barstow was 
 climbing up into Cleeve and planting itself out in 
 the county. In the last, resistance had weakened 
 at the very core. The old duke was dead, and the 
 new duchess was a young woman of ideas. With 
 some humor, she a little neglected the county, and 
 corrupted Cleeve by taking a house there, and 
 organizing concerts and other entertainments in 
 the assembly rooms, which needed the support of 
 Barstow. After a pause of resentful astonishment, 
 the county was beginning to make the best of it 
 by recoiling upon Cleeve and taking Barstow in 
 the same wave. Called by the court to Cleeve, 
 it was rediscovering Barstow, with a notable ad-
 
 250 (THE CATFISH 
 
 vantage to trade, and a breaking down of barriers 
 between the two places that might otherwise have 
 persisted. To the county Cleeve and Barstow were 
 all one, and Cleeve could not afford to sacrifice 
 the social gain by refusing the support of its more 
 commercial neighbor. The new railway and the 
 shy beginnings of motor-cars made access con- 
 venient, and here and there a marriage consum- 
 mated the friendly relations begun at school. 
 
 Some of the currents and cross-currents deter- 
 mined by the new social center of gravity flowed 
 through the bank, and from them and the con- 
 versation of his brother and sister George formed 
 his conception of a small principality. If London 
 had not yet waked up to full self-consciousness as 
 a whole, Barstow and its neighborhood were a lit- 
 tle too wide-awake, with all sorts of amusing 
 phenomena. 
 
 Both Walter and Amelia had the social sense 
 highly developed, and they now found themselves 
 in an unsatisfactory position. The Tracys had 
 settled at Bourneside too late to be absorbed into 
 even the humbler ranks of the county before its 
 awakening to Cleeve. On the other hand, Bourne- 
 side was cut off from Cleeve, not only by the whole 
 breadth of Barstow, but by the outward growth
 
 THE CATFISH 251 
 
 of a suburb. Already, gray villas with slate roofs 
 and freestone bays flanked the road at intervals 
 on either side, nearly to the Barstow end of what 
 had been Gardiner's field, and at any moment the 
 trams might come that way. 
 
 Walter and Amelia had too keen a sense of social 
 values to resent having failed of the county. They 
 positively approved the delay in recognizing new- 
 comers, although as children they had kicked at 
 the exclusiveness of the Archery Club. Besides, 
 it didn't matter now. Since the Dibleys, the 
 boot-manufacturers, had taken Upton Court, and 
 Miss Sherry, of Sherry and Dobbs, had married into 
 the Purefoys, of Queenscote, nobody really worried 
 about the county. But Walter and Amelia felt 
 their separation from Cleeve. They were not 
 snobbish, but they liked society. At Bourneside 
 they were out of everything, and Bourneside 
 was going to be spoiled, anyhow. Unlike George, 
 they had never loved Bourneside for its own sake, 
 but only for its decent seclusion, which was now 
 threatened. Moreover, both Walter and Amelia 
 had formed sentimental alliances in Cleeve, he 
 with a daughter of the navy, she with a captain 
 of engineers. They went into Cleeve a good deal, 
 and were free of its amenities, but then there was
 
 252 THE CATFISH 
 
 the bother of getting home again. Cleeve was their 
 destiny, and they murmured that coming to Bourne* 
 side had been a mistake. 
 
 Father, of course, was hopeless. He thought of 
 nothing but cabbages. By this time, even George 
 was prepared to admit to himself though not to 
 the others that as an idealist his father was 
 unpractical. He had commenced landowner at the 
 end of the landowning epoch. Private ownership 
 in land might, and probably would, go on for an- 
 other generation as a convenience, but it was no 
 longer worth considering as an ideal. England 
 was not going to be saved with cabbages. But 
 even a convenience may be husbanded faithfully 
 or unfaithfully, and George never wavered in his 
 admiration of his father's reverence for the land. 
 Particularly since he had gleaned that, before he 
 was able to indulge it, he must have made some 
 sacrifices for what Mrs. Glanville called the " bee 
 in his bonnet." 
 
 Whether his ideal was practical or not, it gave 
 him a dignity and a security that won the instinctive 
 respect of even those who regarded him as a bit of 
 a crank and a bit of a bore. Nor was it entirely 
 without practical result. Mr. Tracy not only dealt 
 faithfully with his own property, but by precept and
 
 THE CATFISH 253 
 
 example he had greatly improved the general level of 
 agriculture in his immediate neighborhood. It was 
 mainly through his influence that local farmers were 
 turning their attention to market-gardening, and it 
 was a private grief to him that salvation by means 
 of jam had been proposed by a Liberal statesman, 
 and not by one of his own side. To encourage the 
 others he stolidly sent produce from Bourneside 
 into the Barstow market to the disgust of 
 Walter, even carrying it himself in the trap when 
 they drove to the bank in the morning; embroiled 
 himself with the railway company over the question 
 of rates; gave prizes for the best-kept allotments, 
 and was chairman of the local Farmers' Club. 
 
 But he would have nothing to do with any 
 association that was not, in his view, severely 
 practical. He persistently declined the office of 
 magistrate, and took no part in politics. " I'm 
 not a talker," was his answer to all attempts to 
 enlist him. This was not said out of scorn for 
 talkers; indeed, one of his most endearing traits 
 to George was his pathetic belief in the wisdom and 
 honesty of those who represented the agricultural 
 interest with their tongues, or, as he said, " skir- 
 mished in front." 
 
 Since his wife's death, however, Mr. Tracy had
 
 254 THE CATFISH 
 
 begun laboriously to compile a Yeoman's Year 
 Book upon the results of his experience, and 
 some of George's happiest hours were spent in 
 advising upon the English of it. George doubted 
 if the book would have any great value for the 
 future, but it was at least an interesting record of 
 the past, full of good sense and acute observations. 
 
 Often when they left the bank, Walter would 
 remain in Cleeve to bicycle home at a late hour 
 with Amelia ; and after the things had been cleared 
 away, George and his father, spectacles lending a 
 curious mildness to the latter, would sit in the 
 lamplit dining-room over their literary task. 
 George's moderate skill with words was a constant 
 source of wonder to his father. 
 
 " You ought to have been a writer, George," he 
 would say, with slight anxiety at the idea that 
 George was being wasted in the bank, and George 
 would reassure him by saying that there was plenty 
 of time for that. 
 
 Sometimes, Mr. Tracy would talk, not sentimen- 
 tally, but in a tone of speculation, about his wife. 
 
 "You seem to be a pretty even mixture," he 
 said one evening ; " your mother was romantic, 
 while I have always been very practical. I can 
 see both sides in you. Your mother had a habit
 
 THE CATFISH 255 
 
 of hoarding up useless things for the sake of their 
 associations letters, ribbons, your first shoes, 
 flowers, and so on. I found a whole collection of 
 such trifles. In some cases I could remember the 
 circumstances, in others I could not. There were 
 the broken remains of an iris wrapped in paper and 
 dated May, 1881. That must have been about the 
 time you went to St. Piran's." 
 
 " It was a flower I wouldn't give her," said 
 George quietly. " May I have it? " 
 
 " Certainly, you may," said his father. " I 
 would like you each to keep some little thing to 
 remember her by. ... I ought to have grown more 
 flowers," he added, after a pause; "she loved 
 flowers." 
 
 Every morning George drove with his father 
 into Barstow. Sometimes Walter accompanied 
 them, but as a rule he bicycled to spare the pony, 
 he said, but, George believed, to escape the indignity 
 of plums or tomatoes. At the bank, George was 
 in a more confidential position than he had occupied 
 in London, but less in touch with the world. Here 
 he was definitely the son of one of the partners, 
 learning the business in all its branches rather than 
 performing any particular one of them. Except 
 for the light it gave upon the general problems
 
 256 THE CATFISH 
 
 that interested him, he found the work unexciting 
 and largely a matter of routine, but Barstow was 
 a new and absorbing experience. 
 
 Here he had the whole scheme of things under 
 the eye at once. Barstow being a port and a 
 manufacturing center as well, he was able to follow 
 the fortunes of many raw materials from the ship 
 to the shop. The " bales of merchandise " of his 
 childhood, with their appeal to the imagination, 
 were every-day realities, to be handled on the quays 
 and estimated with the more precise knowledge of 
 a man. As Mr. Tracy said, George was romantic; 
 but he was romantic about realities, and it seemed 
 to him that most of the transformations between 
 the ship and the shop were a missing of possibilities 
 and a degradation of values. Color and richness 
 from East and West, dumped on the quays, became 
 flat banality in the windows. Meanwhile human 
 beings were hungering for color and richness. 
 He was reminded of the Spanish proverb: 
 " God sends the food and the devil cooks it," and of 
 the saying : " Sad to think that in a few years' 
 time all these fine lads would be frivolous members 
 of parliament." He was not prepared to say exactly 
 where the degradation took place; something must 
 be allowed for the difference between seeing things
 
 THE CATFISH 257 
 
 in bulk and in detail, and in the transformation 
 from the general to the particular some loss of 
 quality was only to be expected; but he refused 
 to believe that the finished article whether it 
 were something to eat, something to wear, or some- 
 thing to look at need be so far below the promise 
 of the stuff. 
 
 It was not from lack of human capacity in 
 handling the stuff. Down here he had better op- 
 portunities than in London of seeing how things 
 were done, and the relations between one branch 
 of industry and another. He spent a good deal 
 of his leisure loafing about factories and work- 
 shops and talking to the men, and he was often 
 astonished at the degree of skill employed in various 
 processes. But it was often employed in sophisti- 
 cation, not necessarily dishonest. People couldn't 
 let the stuff alone. They messed it up with alien 
 flavors or " took the plain look off " with meaning- 
 less decoration. He recalled a reflection that had 
 come into his head when he watched the artist paint- 
 ing the Waterfall; the alluring richness of the 
 colors in the box, their poverty when spread upon 
 the paper. He had heard Darragh say : " Learn- 
 ing to paint is learning what not to do." Well, that 
 seemed to apply to everything.
 
 258 THE CATFISH 
 
 Thinking about it, he was struck by the number 
 of apparently unnecessary people engaged in dis- 
 tribution. Each acted as a sort of filter, setting 
 a slightly lower standard than the preceding one. 
 You had a better choice in the wholesale dealer's 
 than in the retail shop. At the same time, there 
 could be no doubt that other people besides himself 
 were conscious of the degradation of values. There 
 were the advertisements for " wholemeal " bread, 
 for American cereals, " containing all the elements 
 necessary for building, nourishing and sustaining 
 the human body," for " raw " silk and " natural " 
 wool. Rightly or wrongly, there was a deep human 
 instinct for the stuff with all its possibilities re- 
 tained. For himself, he was prepared to admit 
 that the feeling was mainly esthetic romance on 
 the quays, banality in the windows; but he had 
 a strong suspicion that the esthetic feeling was 
 as good a practical guide as any other. He had 
 observed, among other things, that the general 
 tendency of mechanical invention was toward the 
 direct transmission of power; to tap the mysterious 
 forces of nature in their purity. He never traveled 
 in a trolley-car but he felt the urgency of the 
 heavens. 
 
 Except his father, George had no intimate com-
 
 THE CATFISH 259 
 
 panions, though he made plenty of acquaintances. 
 He joined Walter's club in Cleeve, played tennis 
 and cultivated the families of his future brother- 
 and sister-in-law. He was not conscious of hold- 
 ing himself aloof, though he understood from 
 Amelia that he was considered rather supercilious. 
 All that he was aware of was that he liked people 
 better at work than at play, and that his regard 
 for them increased in proportion as they were 
 interested in their jobs. This led him to make 
 friends in unexpected places, and one of the 
 humors of the luncheon-hour was Walter's look of 
 concern at his brother's queer company of the 
 moment. Associations that would have passed un- 
 noticed in London were glaring upon the smooth 
 organization of provincial life. 
 
 George found the provincial young woman of 
 his own class an amusing study. In so far as she 
 was a sportsman, a partner at tennis or dances, he 
 liked her, but, though noisily asserting the con- 
 trary, she wouldn't be content with that. Des- 
 perately unsentimental, she had nevertheless the 
 keenest eye for those relations that are supposed 
 to be based on sentiment. In speech, dress and 
 manner, she ignored the distinctions between man 
 and woman, but never forgot that he was a possible
 
 260 THE CATFISH 
 
 husband and she a possible wife. Nor did this 
 seem to proceed from a wish for what social critics 
 called " loveless marriage ". Directly an engage- 
 ment was achieved, sentiment was unloosed with 
 a fervor and a freedom that, as illustrated between 
 Amelia and her young man and Walter and his 
 young woman, filled George with mingled wonder 
 and embarrassment. Assuming that the young 
 people liked sentiment, the idea seemed to be: 
 " Business first, pleasure afterward " ; and at the 
 back of his mind, George had a vague feeling that 
 it was all of a piece with the tendency to think 
 of prices before values. In practise it bored him. 
 He didn't want to make love, but still less did he 
 want to form or to discuss relations in which love- 
 making was an afterthought. 
 
 He missed Darragh badly, though the practise 
 of writing to him and to Mrs. Glanville undoubtedly 
 helped him to formulate his ideas on things in 
 general. Not that Darragh was very responsive 
 about things in general, but that, as George knew, 
 he read George's letters to Mary Festing. George 
 would have liked to write to Mary, but could not 
 find a pretext sufficiently remote from the wish to 
 have a letter from her. He could not bring himself 
 to write: "Dear Mary." She sent him messages
 
 THE CATFISH 261 
 
 through Darragh, and he could feel that she was 
 interested in what he said, though sometimes her 
 comments gave him the impression that she thought 
 he was trying to be clever. That was not true, 
 though, short of the simplicity which would have 
 given too much of himself away, he had to be 
 rather elaborate in his form of expression. After 
 all, it did not matter what Mary thought of him so 
 long as he heard about her. Darragh sent him 
 the magazines in which her poems and stories ap- 
 peared ; she was now writing her first novel.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AT Bourneside the person he saw most of was 
 Mr. Mostyn. A little grayer and stouter, 
 the vicar was still rushing about, with belt flying 
 wide, and bigger pipes and heavier boots than ever. 
 Lately a new poet had rediscovered the glory of 
 maleness, and Mr. Mostyn was one of his noisiest 
 disciples. He exploded with the slang of the 
 barrack-room, played the recruiting sergeant among 
 the young men, and divided his congregation into 
 approving and disapproving halves by flinging 
 down sanguinary quotations from the pulpit. 
 George liked some of the new poet's writings, though 
 it struck him as rather odd that young women and 
 clergymen should be the people most impressed by 
 his glorification of maleness. He understood that 
 Darragh and Mary were not so impressed, though 
 they admired the poet for other reasons. 
 
 George being the only young man of his class 
 immediately available for Walter was too much 
 occupied in Cleeve he was " hoicked out of that," 
 to use Mr. Mostyn's expression, in the name of the 
 
 262
 
 THE CATFISH 263 
 
 ne\v gospel to captain village louts at cricket on 
 the common. He didn't mind the cricket, and he 
 liked some of the louts, but he wished that Mr. 
 Mostyn wouldn't make such a point of his being 
 a public schoolboy. After all, cricket had been 
 played on village commons for several generations. 
 Then Mr. Mostyn discovered that he had a good 
 baritone voice, and enlisted him in the choir. 
 
 This, after the first shyness, became a pleasure. 
 George loved music, and though the capacities of 
 the choir and Mr. Mostyn's preference for a " hearty 
 service " did not allow any great subtlety of execu- 
 tion, the very fact of singing a part made him feel 
 impersonal and so able to let himself go. The near 
 neighborhood of the organ gave him confidence; 
 the look of the serried pipes recalled the fir-wood 
 at the edge of the Camp, and the color of stained 
 glass was oddly one with sound. In this atmos- 
 phere emotion became a relief instead of an em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 Soon after George joined the choir there was 
 a. new organist; a Mrs. Lorimer, whose husband 
 was an insurance agent. The Lorimers had lately 
 taken part of the dwelling-house of the mill between 
 the Waterfall and the Grove, and people said that 
 there was something odd about them, probably be-
 
 264 THE CATFISH 
 
 cause they did not associate with their neighbors. 
 Mrs. Lorimer seemed superior to her husband, and 
 it was said that she was a doctor's daughter. She 
 was a good-looking dark woman of about thirty, 
 with high cheek-bones and a pretty Scotch accent. 
 Amelia said that she dressed above her station. 
 The first thing that George noticed about Mrs. 
 Lorimer was that she always used the same scent; 
 it was pervasive rather than powerful and aroused 
 his curiosity by suggesting something beyond. He 
 described Mrs. Lorimer to himself as a lurking 
 person; but compared to Mary Festing she was 
 a lurking warmth instead of a lurking coolness. 
 Little as he knew about music, he recognized that 
 she was a good organist; she let it out instead of 
 making it, was the way he described her playing. 
 The previous organist had also been a woman, but 
 until now it had never seemed as if there were 
 a woman in the chancel. Mrs. Lorimer belonged 
 to the atmosphere created by the colored glass and 
 the sound of the organ. 
 
 For the sermon Mrs. Lorimer left the organ 
 bench and sat on a rush chair half-screened by a; 
 curtain. Occasionally George became conscious 
 that she was looking at him across the chancel, 
 but when he met her eyes she looked away without
 
 THE CATFISH 265 
 
 embarrassment, so that he concluded it was merely 
 the accident of position. But once she maintained 
 her glance for a second or two with an expression 
 that he could not interpret. It made him feel 
 slightly uncomfortable, but did not repel him. 
 After that he was conscious of trying not to look at 
 Mrs. Lorimer. 
 
 So far he had not spoken to her, though he had 
 listened to her talking to Mr. Mostyn at choir 
 practise on Thursday evenings. Mrs. Lorimer had 
 nothing to do with training the choir, but there 
 were good-humored arguments between her and the 
 vicar about the choice of music. Mr. Mostyn 
 wanted " all British " music. So far as the sing- 
 ing was concerned he more or less had his way, 
 but he could not persuade Mrs. Lorimer to 
 abandon " foreign stuff " for her voluntaries. 
 The foreign stuff, as George knew, was Bach, Moz- 
 art, and occasionally, to his delight, Beethoven. 
 These discussions at the end of choir practise in- 
 terested George, though he did not take part in 
 them. Usually most of the choir had gone, and 
 the lamps were put out, leaving only the candles 
 at the organ, and producing an atmosphere of in- 
 timacy in which Mr. Mostyn's maleness and Mrs. 
 Lorimer's femininity, intensified by her character-
 
 266 THE CATFISH 
 
 istic, persistent perfume and soft, slightly burring 
 voice, were strongly contrasted. One evening she 
 suddenly appealed to George for support, with: 
 " Isn't it, Mr. Tracy? " On the preceding Sunday 
 she had played for the offertory at choral celebra- 
 tion the Ave Verum out of Mozart's Requiem Mass, 
 and the vicar quoted it as an example of the music 
 he disliked. George agreed with Mrs. Lorimer that 
 it was beautiful and appropriate. Mr. Mostyn 
 said : " Oh, he's a dreamer," and Mrs Lorimer, 
 turning away, said, without emphasis, "Ah, he 
 knows." 
 
 George's and Mrs. Lorimer's way home was in 
 the same direction, but they had never walked 
 together. Mrs. Lorimer left the churchyard by the 
 gate into the road, either alone or with some of 
 the young women who sat in the body of the church 
 for choir practise, while George went down through 
 the vicarage garden with Mr. Mostyn, sometimes 
 going into the vicarage for a smoke and a chat. 
 Below the vicarage the two ways joined, and one 
 October night on reaching the corner George saw 
 Mrs. Lorimer just ahead of him. He caught her 
 up and she said : " Oh, it's you, Mr. Tracy," as 
 if in surprise, though he was inclined to believe 
 that she had loitered
 
 THE CATFISH 267 
 
 Going down the hill they talked about Mr. 
 Mostyn. "Isn't he a Goth?" said Mrs. Lorimer, 
 and George agreed, though he felt it necessary to 
 add something" about the vicar's good qualities. 
 Mrs. Lorimer said : " Oh, of course. Please don't 
 think that I don't respect Mr. Mostyn. What I 
 meant was that he has no sympathy with well, 
 with the things we care about." 
 
 George was flattered by the plural; it implied 
 that she had been thinking about him. Grateful 
 for the opportunity, he began to talk rather im- 
 pulsively about the music he loved, mentioning the 
 concerts he had been to in London. Mrs. Lorimer 
 listened sympathetically, murmuring : " Of course, 
 of course," as if she quite understood his feelings. 
 " I expect you are rather lonely, down here," she 
 said, and then he suddenly realized that he was, 
 though he said that he found plenty of things to 
 amuse him. 
 
 During the earlier part of the day, and the day 
 before, it had rained heavily, and when they reached 
 the bottom of the hill they found that while they 
 had been in church the Bourne had overflowed, 
 and for twenty yards or so the road was at least 
 ankle deep in water. If George had been alone he 
 would have splashed through gaily, for he knew
 
 268 THE CATFISH 
 
 that for the rest of the way home the ground was 
 higher. It would be more than an hour before the 
 flood by the smithy could be any serious depth. 
 
 But Mrs. Lorimer hesitated. In order to get 
 home dry-shod she would have to make a detour 
 across fields. George felt that he could not very 
 well desert her now, but he was not keen enough 
 about her company to welcome the lengthened walk 
 in the dark. Hardly thinking, he said : " I'll carry 
 you across." 
 
 She laughed nervously, and said : " But can 
 you?" 
 
 That settled it, and without answering, he 
 stooped and picked her up. It pleased him that 
 she did not make any fuss, or show any fear, real 
 or affected, but remained passive in his arms with 
 hers lightly resting on his shoulders as he splashed 
 through the water, which was nearly up to his knees 
 at the deepest part. While carrying her he was 
 conscious of trying to think what the scent she 
 used reminded him of, but it escaped him. 
 
 " How strong you are ! " she said when he put 
 her down. He laughed awkwardly, for he was be- 
 ginning to feel shy now, and for a little way they 
 walked in silence. 
 
 " I often wonder what vou are thinkin^ abort
 
 THE CATFISH 269 
 
 in the sermon," said Mrs. Lorimer presently. It 
 was near enough to their previous conversation not 
 to seem unduly personal, and George said : " Oh, 
 nothing of any consequence. As Mr. Mostyn says, 
 I'm afraid I am a bit of a wool-gatherer." 
 
 She made a little sound of impatience and said: 
 " Ah, he doesn't understand you." 
 
 The implication was that she did, but George 
 was not yet quite ready to take full advantage of 
 her sympathy, and for the rest of the walk he kept 
 the conversation off himself. 
 
 When they parted, just above the smithy, leaving 
 her only the high field opposite the Bourneside 
 Orchard to walk alone, Mrs. Lorimer said: 
 
 " I wish you'd let me try your voice, some time. 
 I believe something might be done with it." 
 
 George said something about having no time, but 
 she went on, steadily, " I teach music, you know 
 - not singing, but the piano. But I know enough 
 about singing to give you some hints. You might 
 come to the church before choir practise or I 
 am at home nearly every afternoon." 
 
 Recognizing that she was not asking him to be- 
 come a paying pupil, George felt that it would be 
 ungracious to refuse, and he said he would go to 
 the mill the next Thursday afternoon when he
 
 2 ;o THE CATFISH 
 
 came home early from the bank. " At any rate 
 you can play for me," he said. 
 
 " That will be splendid," said Mrs. Lorimer. 
 " Well, good night. Thank you for preserving me 
 from the flood. I shall have to call you Saint 
 George." 
 
 He was left uncertain whether or not she was 
 making fun of his solemnity, and whether or not 
 he liked her. He felt vaguely that there was some- 
 thing wrong about Mrs. Lorimer, but when he tried 
 to find a reason it was only because she was so 
 different from Mary Festing, who was the only 
 other woman who had aroused his curiosity. Mary 
 would not have let him carry her through the water. 
 Not that she would have turned back; she would 
 have splashed through the water at his side. The 
 thing about Mary was that she would go anywhere 
 with you at any time without regard for conse- 
 quences or criticism. It was only about herself 
 that she would be nice. Then he said : " Bother 
 Mary Festing ! " He had never held a woman so 
 close before, and the memory was pleasant; he 
 fancied that the scent of her was still upon him. 
 
 When he went in he spoke to the others about 
 having had to walk through the water, but he 
 said nothing about having carried Mrs. Lorimer.
 
 THE CATFISH 271 
 
 Somehow he felt sure that she would not speak of 
 it to anybody, and the thought pleased him. He 
 went to bed with the sense of having had a little 
 adventure. 
 
 On Thursday afternoon Mrs. Lorimer was so 
 relentlessly professional about his voice that he 
 felt a little humiliated, as if he had romanced about 
 her. " No, no, stupid," she said, with evident un- 
 consciousness of taking a liberty ; " you must breathe 
 deeper. Watch me. Now, put your hands here." 
 
 There was not a trace of self -consciousness in 
 her as she held his hands to her sides. With respect, 
 he knew that he was dealing with that savage 
 utilitarian, the artist. 
 
 When she left the piano, however, her manner 
 changed. It was as if she had put aside a person- 
 ality with which she could not trifle. Her eyes, 
 which had been expressionless, now deepened and 
 darkened with the look he could not interpret, and 
 her voice, which had been imperative, now softened 
 into a lazy confidential murmur, with pretty un- 
 expected stresses, as she spoke of the blank Phi- 
 listinism of country life. 
 
 " How you can stand it after London, I don't 
 know," she said. 
 
 Remembering the limited circumstances of her
 
 272 THE CATFISH 
 
 husband, he did not like to ask her how she could. 
 But he wondered why so good a musician, married 
 or not, should live in the country. He would have 
 supposed that she could make more money in town, 
 but she did not seem to have any pupils in Barstow. 
 The cottage which, though quaking in sympathy, 
 was really distinct from the mill, with a separate 
 entrance, indicated slipshod housekeeping with a 
 taste for pretty things. There were too many 
 rags, he thought. The cretonne of the couch under 
 the little curtained window which spied upon the 
 deep glide of the Bourne from under the bridge, 
 wanted washing. Mrs. Lorimer herself, though 
 attractively, was not very neatly dressed. Watch- 
 ing her, he thought that she dressed by instinct, 
 as Mrs. Glanville, with the help of Kate Flanders, 
 dressed with art; she was emphatically but rather 
 crudely feminine. 
 
 She was interesting, however; intelligent outside 
 her own subject, and, in a loose way, well ac- 
 quainted with what was going on in art and 
 literature. Those were the " Yellow Book " days, 
 and her tastes seemed to lie in that atmosphere. 
 She spoke with scorn of the muscular school which 
 excited the admiration of Mr. Mostyn. George 
 did not pretend to be a critic, but he felt that there
 
 THE CATFISH 273 
 
 must be good on both sides, and suspected that, 
 outside music, Mrs. Lorimer's judgment was not 
 very sound. It was the queerness rather than the 
 goodness that appealed to her. He wished that 
 Darragh was there to put his ideas into words. 
 On second thought, he did not wish that Darragh 
 were there; one side of him was quite at home 
 with Mrs. Lorimer. She was the first woman he 
 had talked to since he left London. Amelia and 
 her friends in Cleeve were pleasant and amusing, 
 but they were not, in any sense of the word that 
 mattered, women. 
 
 Mrs. Lorimer persuaded him to stop to tea, 
 which was got by a sulky, dirty little maid, and 
 before they had finished Mr. Lorimer came in. He 
 was a worried-looking man, apparently several 
 years older than his wife, and obviously not her 
 match in general intelligence. George did not like 
 him. He seemed glad to see George; rather too 
 glad for social ease, though Mrs. Lorimer kept his 
 effusiveness within reasonable bounds. It was he 
 and not his wife who hoped that Mr. Tracy would 
 come again; "the wife," as he called her, was 
 rather at a loss for society. 
 
 George wished that there were not a Mr. Lorimer. 
 He was interested in Mrs. Lorimer and, whatever
 
 274 THE CATFISH 
 
 her shortcomings, she knew exactly how to behave 
 in her rather anomalous position. At choir practise 
 that evening she made no difference in her manner 
 to him as a result of the afternoon's visit, though 
 she casually remarked to Mr. Mostyn that she had 
 tried Mr. Tracy's voice and found it promising, 
 " if you don't encourage him to bellow." George 
 began to take notice of how other people spoke 
 of Mrs. Lorimer. He gathered that she >was not 
 generally liked, though her playing was appreciated. 
 The only person who seemed to find her interesting 
 as a woman was Mrs. Mostyn. Once when the 
 vicar had come home grumbling at " Mrs. Lorimer's 
 fandangos " on the organ, his wife said, from the 
 sofa: 
 
 " That's temperament, my dear Swipes. We're 
 not all so fatiguingly healthy in our tastes as you 
 are. Mrs. Lorimer is a dear, grubby, perverse 
 thing. I'm sure she has a darling vice of some 
 sort. Don't you think so, George ? " 
 
 George said he didn't know about that, but that 
 he liked Mrs. Lorimer's playing. You couldn't 
 talk seriously to Mrs. Mostyn; she was clever, but 
 too lazy to think what she meant so long as it 
 sounded shocking. Altogether, though it seemed 
 to him rather a pity that a woman like Mrs. Lorimer
 
 THE CATFISH 275 
 
 should be left without society, he did not see how 
 anybody could help it. 
 
 The slight differences that Mrs. Lorimer made 
 between her public and private manner to him 
 were not more than subtly flattering to his intelli- 
 gence. It was tacitly assumed that they had tastes 
 in common. It was tacitly assumed, also, that 
 Mrs. Lorimer should loiter on her way home from 
 choir practise so that he generally caught her up 
 at the corner. She took him for granted in a 
 way that pleased without disturbing him. Com- 
 paring her with Mary Festing, now unwillingly, he 
 said that it was a different side of him she took for 
 granted; a side that Mary, by temperament, could 
 know nothing about and would rather despise if 
 she could. Occasionally he called at the cottage on 
 Thursday or Saturday afternoons, and got Mrs. 
 Lorimer to play to him. On Saturday Mr. Lorimer 
 was generally at home, wrestling pathetically with 
 a dank and overgrown garden that merged into 
 the Grove; and if George's visits were more often 
 on Thursday than Saturday, it was only because 
 he found Mr. Lorimer's effusive hospitality rather 
 tiresome. 
 
 With familiarity, the little quaking, overcrowded 
 room, with its characteristic lurking odor and mu-
 
 276 THE CATFISH 
 
 sical associations, began to haunt him. It had 
 mystery. He found himself looking oftener at Mrs. 
 Lorimer across the chancel and wondering about 
 her. There was a curious contrast between her 
 harsh cheek-bones and soft mouth with its slightly 
 ashamed expression. If she caught his eyes, now, 
 her own answered them, and sometimes she dis- 
 creetly smiled before she turned away. Occasional 
 personalities seemed to arise naturally out of their 
 tacit understanding. Mrs. Lorimer said : " I was 
 quite right to call you Saint George. You are so 
 English in type, and the window gives you a golden 
 halo," and once in passing she lightly brushed his 
 hair with her hand. 
 
 One December afternoon when he called at the 
 cottage he found her restless. She made one or 
 two attempts to play to him, but her attention wan- 
 dered, and she said, finally : " No, let's talk." 
 Conversation was not a success, however. She 
 knelt before the fire, with her back to him, and 
 aimlessly stirred between the bars. Her uneasiness 
 reacted upon him; until now she had always been 
 self-possessed, though he was often vaguely dis- 
 turbed in that room. Now he wanted to go and 
 he wanted to stay. 
 
 When, with an effort, he rose, she said : " Do
 
 THE CATFISH 277 
 
 stop to tea. You'll have to help me to get it, 
 though," she added with a laugh ; " Lizzie has gone 
 home." 
 
 He stayed. In putting cups on the table their 
 hands touched, and they laughed without reason. 
 Over their tea they were both silent, and they 
 avoided each other's eyes. The meal was a mere 
 pretense, though she spasmodically pressed him 
 to eat and drink. He smoked a cigarette while 
 she feverishly bundled the tea-things into the 
 kitchen. They carried on a broken conversation in 
 unnaturally loud voices through the open door. 
 When she returned to the sitting-room, he stood 
 up, and said he really must go. 
 
 "Stay a few minutes longer," she said; "I " 
 but left the sentence unfinished. 
 
 George hesitated. " Well " he began, but for- 
 got what he was going to say. She laughed, picked 
 up a book, put it down again, and came over to 
 where he stood by the window. 
 
 " Do sit down," she said, and put out her hand 
 as if to push, but clutched instead. The trembling 
 floor weakened him. He made some inarticulate 
 sound, and she swayed against him, leaning heavily. 
 For a moment he remained passive and then awk- 
 wardly put his arm about her.
 
 278 THE CATFISH 
 
 "What is it?" he murmured huskily. 
 
 " You you know," she gasped, with her fore- 
 head on his shoulder. 
 
 " I must go," he whispered, and half turned. 
 But she had him now, and straining down his head, 
 with hot lips greedily drank of his youth.
 
 AFTERWARD she cried, and called herself 
 a bad woman. But he, in the belief that 
 he had taken and not given, protested. She had 
 made a king of him. Kneeling at her side with 
 his arms about her, he poured out in broken en- 
 dearments the passion she had awakened and fed. 
 If her husband had come in then, George would 
 have claimed her exultantly. She had finally to 
 send him away. 
 
 At last he had realized himself. Now he knew 
 the meaning of everything; his childish dreams and 
 aspirations, the vague troubles of his adolescence, 
 the suppressed curiosity of his manhood. This was 
 the secret of the Grove, and he could imagine that 
 the thunder of the Waterfall was the vain threat 
 of jealous powers to frighten him from its dis- 
 covery- He had found the synthesis of all his na- 
 ture. Inevitably he thought of Mary Festing in 
 her cold aloofness, and it was with a feeling of 
 triumph. He half wished that she could know. 
 
 If it were not love it was so mixed with grati- 
 279
 
 280 THE CATFISH 
 
 tude that it had for him all the effects of love. 
 Slowly roused, he was an ardent lover, and his 
 mistress had to teach him discretion. She was an 
 artist in depravity and made him feel that their 
 passion was somehow part of the mysteries in which 
 they were first associated. Even the meaning of 
 the sanctuary was intensified for him. And with 
 the sense of completion, of life unified, there was 
 the piquancy of contrast; their traffic of eyes during 
 the sermon was discreet as much out of reverence 
 as from fear of discovery, and there was a thrill 
 in keeping at bay in moments of devotion the secret 
 of the quaking scented room. 
 
 He knew that he was sinning, of course; he had 
 no theories to justify himself, but that only gave 
 depth to his passion. It was all sad, mad, bad and 
 glorious. He could imagine himself Lancelot, now, 
 with full conviction. His relations with other peo- 
 ple were improved; they said he had waked up 
 wonderfully, and was more human. Nobody sus- 
 pected, though he took a daring delight in speaking 
 of Mrs. Lorimer. He would take her side boldly 
 in arguments with the vicar, and sometimes on leav- 
 ing the church after choir practise she would walk: 
 with them through the vicarage garden. It seemed 
 natural that George should see her home.
 
 THE CATFISH 281 
 
 Her character kept the thing above a mere in- 
 dulgence of the flesh. Her talent for music was too 
 real to have been employed as a lure, and he re- 
 mained impressed by her gravity when she played. 
 If he had not loved music, he would have been 
 jealous of her playing; it was her conscience. Not 
 that she was too easy in her abandonment. She 
 would refuse him, or yield after protest, though 
 always unreservedly. Sometimes he found her 
 oddly agitated, unnaturally flushed and uncertain in 
 her temper. 
 
 He did not consider what he should do if their 
 guilt were discovered, though he knew that he 
 would not shirk the consequences. What precau- 
 tions he took at her desire were less for safety than 
 because they increased his feeling of romance. He 
 liked to approach her cottage through the Grove, to 
 look for the scarf at the little window overlooking 
 the Bourne which told him that she would be alone, 
 before he crossed the little ivied arch of a forgot- 
 ten builder. It must have been made for some 
 lover's approach, he thought. 
 
 The end was brutally sharp. One evening, when 
 he was walking home with Walter from dinner at 
 a neighbor's, Walter said, apropos to nothing : 
 
 "Heard about Mrs. Lorimer?"
 
 282 THE CATFISH 
 
 George braced himself in the dark and said qui- 
 etly: 
 
 "No; what?" 
 
 " She went to give a lesson to Milly Matthews, 
 and she was blind." 
 
 " Blind ! " echoed George, halting in the road. 
 
 " Drunk, you ass," said Walter composedly. 
 
 " I don't believe it," said George fiercely. 
 
 " It was a shock to me," said Walter. " I rather 
 liked her, and thought that the women might have 
 stretched a point to make her more comfortable 
 here. But it's no good now. She can't be let into 
 the church again not to play. People wouldn't 
 stand it. Fleetwood suspected her some time ago, 
 and spoke to Mostyn about it, but they agreed that 
 so long as she behaved decently it wasn't fair to 
 do or even say anything." 
 
 George's first impulse had been to tell Walter that 
 he was talking about the woman he loved, but he 
 saw now that anything he said could only harm 
 her. Accepting his silence as natural, since he had 
 frankly expressed an interest in Mrs. Lorimer, Wal- 
 ter went on, compassionately: 
 
 "Of course it's an old story. Mostyn went 
 down to see Lorimer, and the poor little rat told 
 him all about it. She keeps quiet, and then she
 
 THE CATFISH 283 
 
 breaks out. They've shifted about from place to 
 place to make a fresh start. Where they were 
 last a young swine of a farmer used to take her 
 whisky." 
 
 "For God's sake shut up," said George in des- 
 peration. 
 
 " Sorry, old chap," said Walter penitently. " I 
 forgot you were a pal of hers. I'm sure Lorimer 
 must be grateful to you for being friendly and taking 
 her out of herself. Perhaps if more people had 
 done the same she might have kept straight. But 
 one never knows, in cases like that. Mostyn wants 
 to get her into a home." 
 
 How much or how little her vices were mingled 
 George could not know. But he knew that he had 
 lent his manhood to shame. A dozen little peculi- 
 arities in her behavior were now explained : what 
 was beyond her perfume stank in his nostrils. 
 Rightly or wrongly, he saw himself the dupe of the 
 bottle. In spite of his degradation he was loyal 
 to what he could not now pretend to be love, and 
 the next day he extended his luncheon hour to 
 hurry out to the cottage, risking the chance of Mr. 
 Lorimer's being at home. He was not at home, 
 but she refused to see George, sending a message 
 by the little maid that she was unwell. Then he
 
 284 THE CATFISH 
 
 wrote, saying that he must see her. She did not 
 answer, and he went to the cottage again. This 
 time the maid gave him a note, evidently kept in 
 readiness. "Why do you persecute me? For 
 pity's sake leave me alone. I hope I have not 
 harmed you, and I am sure nobody suspects/' Ap- 
 parently as an afterthought she added : " I shall 
 never regret." 
 
 Nor, when the first misery was over, did he; 
 and always in his thoughts of her, shame was min- 
 gled with a feeling of gratitude that he could neither 
 explain nor justify. But for the time he suffered 
 the full punishment of his guilt. As is usual in 
 such cases, there were now plenty of people be- 
 sides Doctor Fleetwood who had suspected Mrs. 
 Lorimer's habit, and possibly to explain their having 
 neglected her, they spoke of what they had noticed. 
 George's interest in her had been open enough to 
 make him a natural recipient of these confidences; 
 and he was exposed to the humiliation of being 
 treated as a chivalrous and quixotic, though rather 
 an unsuspecting person. His bitterest moment of 
 all was on the day when the contents of the Lori- 
 mer's cottage were sold. Mr. Lorimer had been 
 transferred by his company to a new district. His
 
 THE CATFISH 285 
 
 wife had already gone, but he remained to settle 
 up affairs. George met him carrying some books 
 that had been reserved from the sale. Lorimer did 
 not speak, but the sight of him, so broken and yet 
 so patiently prepared to make a fresh start, was 
 almost more than George could bear. Only com- 
 mon-sense kept him from going up to the man 
 and confessing that he had wronged him. 
 
 The natural result of George's remorse was a 
 reaction to the point of view expressed by Mr. 
 Mostyn. He now had an exaggerated respect for 
 healthy Philistinism. In his arrogance he had mis- 
 judged these noisy people who played games and 
 mocked at temperament. His dreams had only led 
 him astray. He distrusted all his instincts : his love 
 of nature, his critical speculations about a world 
 that was, after all, a world of clean straight fellows, 
 who got things done to the best of their powers. 
 The Grove was now the place of Rahab's window; 
 even his religious emotions were tainted with the 
 associations of sin. Fortunately this mood did not 
 last long; what helped to weaken it was the re- 
 flection that even Mr. Mostyn seemed to have a 
 sentimental tolerance for the irregular alliances of 
 clean, straight young Englishmen with a subject
 
 286 THE CATFISH 
 
 race. He did not approve in so many words, but 
 his quotations from his favorite poet indicated that 
 he thought them rather finer fellows for their hu- 
 man weakness, and that the fair heathen were hon- 
 ored by their attentions. Then George went with 
 Walter and Amelia and their beloved to a musical 
 play at the Barstow Theater, which dealt with the 
 complications of a naval officer between a dusky 
 daughter of the East and a sweet English girl. His 
 companions wept in sympathy, but George was in- 
 furiated. The picture of the Servian woman still 
 worked in his imagination. 
 
 Out of it all emerged with triumphant though 
 now forbidding clearness the image of Mary Fest- 
 ing. That kept him from becoming cynical. Mary, 
 and Mary only, was the measure of his guilt. Be- 
 fore, she had been set apart from passion; now 
 she was sacred from his love. He could never 
 touch her cool hand again without the sense of 
 profanity; never meet her grave eyes with even 
 the courage of dissimulation. Sometimes he 
 dreamed that she knew ; she floated moon-like over 
 the fir-trees, with hands idle in her lap and tears 
 falling silently from her bowed face, while his 
 mother cried under the earth, and a scarlet window 
 burned in the recesses of the Grove. It was only
 
 THE CATFISH 287 
 
 when he thought of Mary and his mother that he 
 came near to hating the woman with whom he had 
 stained the womanhood he loved. 
 
 There were Darragh's letters with news of Mary 
 to remind him that it was not his instincts and 
 emotions, but his character that had betrayed him. 
 Darragh and Mary lived innocent in a world where 
 such instincts and emotions were allowed full play, 
 were the stuff of their trade. They had for com- 
 panions men and women who flouted or evaded 
 the conventions by which those instincts and emo- 
 tions were controlled; but, without shrinking, and 
 often with sympathy for the particular case, they 
 kept their heads. Mary's novel dealt with an irreg- 
 ular passion, and Darragh's letters were enough to 
 show that no speculation was feared between them. 
 It did not occur to George that some excuse might 
 be found for him in the fact that he had not, like 
 Mary and Darragh, a trade in which the whole of 
 him could be expressed, as also in the fact of exile 
 from anything like intelligent female society. With 
 Mrs. Glanville's house open to him he would not 
 have consorted with village organists. 
 
 When George was five and twenty his father died, 
 and so his last companion was gone. Mr. Tracy 
 had been ailing for some time, but the end came
 
 288 THE CATFISH 
 
 with a suddenness that seemed appropriate. A 
 chill made acute the malady that had been chronic, 
 and the strong man drove home to his bed. From 
 the first he knew that he was going to die, and knew 
 it with a startled indignation that reminded George 
 of a noble animal shot from behind. Pain made 
 him alert and he sat up in bed, with the line deep- 
 ening into a cleft between his brows, while he har- 
 assed the household with precise directions about 
 his affairs. When Doctor Fleetwood told him to lie 
 down, and murmured hopes of recovery, Mr. Tracy 
 called him an old fool. 
 
 One thing that bothered him was the disposition 
 of Bourneside. He knew that George loved the 
 place and Walter did not, but his passionate belief 
 in the wisdom of his country's laws and traditions 
 would not allow him to will it away from his elder 
 son. Walter would gladly have received an equiva- 
 lent in the division of his father's interest in the 
 bank, but he dared not say so. A dozen times a 
 day Mr. Tracy called the two young men to his 
 room and, with an eye upon George for witness, 
 impressed upon Walter his duties to the estate. 
 On the third day of his illness George and Walter 
 were at supper, leaving Amelia with the nurse, when 
 there came a hammering on the floor above. They
 
 THE CATFISH 289 
 
 hurried to the sick-room. Still clutching the stick 
 with which he had hammered on the floor, Mr. 
 Tracy was able to say, " Don't sell a yard of it! " 
 before he sank into the coma from which he did 
 not wake. 
 
 It was during the period of depression following 
 his father's death that George met Mary Festing 
 again. Though now nominally a partner in the 
 bank he was not yet, nor did he wish to be, ad- 
 mitted to the full responsibilities of directorship. 
 He did his work automatically, with a growing dis- 
 taste, and was glad of any opportunity to fulfill 
 commissions outside routine. Some development 
 of the London business needed the report of an 
 interested person, and George was asked to see 
 to it. For some reason or other he wrote to 
 Eleanor Markham, telling her that he would be in 
 London, and she asked him to spend the week-end 
 at Holmhurst. 
 
 On the Saturday afternoon he was just about to 
 take his ticket at Victoria when he became aware 
 that Mary Festing was standing beside him. The 
 sight of her, so cool and serene in blue linen with 
 a white scarf about her shoulders, affected him 
 strangely. He had not been thinking about her, 
 he had not told either Darragh or Mrs. Glanville
 
 2 9 o THE CATFISH 
 
 that he was coming to London, and yet he was not 
 surprised to see her. She was a figure of consola- 
 tion, embodying the hours of peace at Holmhurst 
 that he had been hoping to enjoy. When he shook 
 hands with her she said quietly : " Eleanor told me 
 that you were going down by this train." At the 
 time it seemed a perfectly natural explanation of 
 her presence; it was only afterward that he re- 
 flected that she must have chosen to be there. 
 
 When they had seated themselves in the train, 
 on opposite seats, he became aware of a change in 
 her manner to him, or rather in the relations be- 
 tween them. She was curiously humble, as if it 
 were now she and not he who was to be taken for 
 granted. The current of curiosity which, in spite 
 of her lurking passiveness of attitude, he had always 
 felt proceeding from her, had ceased. He no longer 
 felt the need to bluff, but the effect, instead of being 
 a relief, was disturbing. Resistance removed, he 
 did not know what to put in its place, and it was 
 as if she were waiting. 
 
 At first he tried to explain her manner by her 
 sense of his double loss since he had last seen her. 
 She did not wish to spy upon his grief. Since she 
 did not ask him any questions and silence was awk- 
 ward, he was driven to ask her questions about
 
 THE CATFISH 291 
 
 Darragh and her work. She answered rather 
 coldly, so that he wondered if she and Darragh had 
 quarreled. There was nothing in her actual re- 
 marks to indicate that they had, and she had seen 
 Darragh who was now living in Chelsea only 
 that morning. But she spoke as if neither Darragh 
 nor her work was the immediate purpose. 
 
 George was perplexed. It was as if he had left 
 something undone. About his own feelings he had 
 no perplexity. Quietly, despairingly, he knew that 
 he loved her, that he had always loved her. Having 
 known woman, although basely, he could no longer 
 mistake the nature of his feelings with regard to 
 her. The poor creature with whom he had abused 
 the name of love had at least done that for him. 
 He knew now that his white thoughts of Mary 
 and the stirring of his blood in her presence were 
 parts of the same mystery. He understood that 
 what had made him bluff with her had been the 
 uncertainty whether she was ready to accept all 
 that was implied in his love, in any man's love. 
 How much of his belief that she was not ready was 
 due to his conversation with Doctor Raymond on the 
 evening when they crossed the Gardens together, 
 he could not have said; but he knew that, in spite 
 of it, if he could have come clean to her he would
 
 292 THE CATFISH 
 
 have knelt and offered her the devotion of his heart. 
 But that was now impossible. 
 
 Unable to say what was in his heart, he talked 
 to her freely about what was in his head : his future 
 plans or no plans, the news of Bourneside, the mild 
 humors of Walter's and Amelia's courtships. He 
 half hoped that something of what he could not 
 say would come out in his comments. Mary in 
 her corner, leaning her dark head on her hand, lis- 
 tened with apparent interest, but her glance at him 
 was not critical as formerly, and when she met 
 his eyes her own looked defensive. It was almost 
 as if she and not he had something to conceal. 
 
 Whether for this reason, or because she had 
 some difficulty in hearing him, at one point in the 
 journey she got up suddenly and came and sat 
 beside him. The movement, so swift and decided, 
 in the quivering train recalled the sudden movement 
 of that other woman in the quaking room, with 
 all the width of innocence between the two, and 
 he could have cried out irritably : " You shouldn't 
 have done that ! " He found himself stammering, 
 and the next moment the train shot out from a dark 
 cutting into a miracle of light and color. On either 
 side the embankment was alive with Campanulas, 
 white, rose and blue, wind-shaken and sun-suffused.
 
 THE CATFISH 293 
 
 At the lovely unexpected sight they both ex- 
 claimed: "Look!" It was only with an effort 
 that he had not seized her hand. If he had, he 
 knew that the touch of her in that moment of emo- 
 tion shared would have abolished the sense of his 
 unfitness and of her austerity. He would have 
 turned and taken her in his arms and said : " Mary, 
 I love you. I have always loved you." 
 
 The moment of danger past, he steeled himself 
 against it by talking in a way that he knew to be 
 trite and informing about the probable reason for 
 the flowers. There were nurseries in the neighbor- 
 hood; somebody must have flung a handful of seed 
 upon the embankment, and in succeeding years the 
 flowers had spread ; and so on, and so on. Whether 
 or not his nervousness reacted upon Mary, she was 
 ill at ease, though strangely quiet, and he was glad 
 when they changed at Sutton. For the remaining 
 short stage of the journey Mary seemed to make 
 a point of looking for a compartment in which 
 there were other people. 
 
 That week-end at Holmhurst was destined for 
 George to be full of half-meanings and little per- 
 plexities. In a minority of one for Mr. Mark- 
 ham was now but a scholarly child with a thin 
 humor that was frankly indulged he felt male
 
 294 THE CATFISH 
 
 and clumsy, and both women were quietly gay, 
 though their embrace at meeting made him think 
 of Ruth and Naomi. Eleanor had come to the 
 stage, not uncommon in the religious, in which the 
 business of the world is a series of amusing phe- 
 nomena; and once in her company Mary seemed to 
 recover her spirits, with perhaps a new note of 
 irony. The place itself was right for their mood; 
 a deep-roofed Surrey farmhouse, converted to a 
 vicarage, standing in an irregular garden with 
 grassed alleys and shady bowers. The cedared 
 lawn was bounded by a sunk fence giving an un- 
 interrupted view over suave, park-like country to 
 blue distant hills. Always to George the landscape 
 suggested the word " Beulah," though in his present 
 company he felt that the immediate surroundings 
 might have been the scene of a court of love. Mr. 
 Markham, with his frail ascetic face, and rather 
 tiresome disquisitions, might have been the presiding 
 cardinal. He ought to have snuffed. 
 
 They lay about in deck chairs among roses in 
 the long June evening and talked lazily. They did 
 not talk about love, but George could feel a fem- 
 inine flicker, like summer lightning, of amusement 
 about the humors of man. With the consciousness 
 of sleeping thunder in his blood, he thought that
 
 THE CATFISH 295 
 
 they didn't play fairly; they trifled with problems 
 they didn't understand. It was all very well for 
 them a nun by choice and a nun by temperament. 
 Though, sometimes, he had the odd idea that if 
 the grossness which poisoned his memory had been 
 revealed, it would have been laughed out of court 
 rather than condemned with horror. 
 
 Mary now talked a great deal about Darragh, 
 with respect of his work and amusement of his 
 " ways." It was evident that she played a sisterly 
 part in his life. She herself had long outgrown 
 the callow taste for picturesque starvation, and Dar- 
 ragh, apparently, had never had it, but he was in- 
 credibly careless. He had to be dug out to meals, 
 bullied into clothes, and dry-nursed in bargains. In 
 the autumn Mary, Darragh and his mother were 
 going to Italy. 
 
 That took them back to the holidays in Cornwall. 
 Mrs. Darragh still had the cottage, though she now 
 spent a great deal of her time in London. She 
 often spoke of George. With her as a text, and 
 so leaving him uncertain whether the interest was 
 personal or vicarious, Mary asked him did he still 
 make maps, and was Lancelot still his hero? 
 
 Then Eleanor had to hear the tale, and so became 
 reminiscent of his childhood. " You were a funny
 
 296 THE CATFISH 
 
 boy," she said. Mary had to be given instances, 
 and, in the dark, George was able to explain and 
 justify the motives which had made him act so 
 queerly. The soft laughter, so understanding and 
 maternal in its cadences, made him feel vaguely 
 that he had lost something in growing up. In this 
 atmosphere, and with the abiding sense of all mys- 
 teries explained, though by the wrong sibyl, he 
 would not have minded if Mary had referred to 
 the scene in the nursery. Somehow it did not seem 
 to matter now. But she did not. Perhaps she 
 had forgotten, or perhaps she thought that it would 
 recall too vividly his mother. 
 
 In the carrying in of chairs, putting out of lights 
 and locking up, Mary slipped away to bed without 
 saying good night to him. The sense of her under 
 the same roof was a mingled emotion. In the 
 night he dreamed that Mrs. Lorimer was dead, 
 and that Mary covered her with pitiful white roses. 
 He was awakened by thunder and pouring rain, and 
 rising to close the casement, recognized that what 
 had inspired his dream was a great bush of white 
 roses in the center of the curving drive. 
 
 In the morning he thought that Mary looked hol- 
 low-cheeked and heavy-eyed, though she was ex- 
 travagently brisk and businesslike in her manner.
 
 THE CATFISH 297 
 
 The thunder, she said, had cleared the air; 
 " though," she added, " it seems to have ruined the 
 roses." That was when they were leaving the 
 front door on their way to early celebration in the 
 queer little church with a shingled spire. George 
 knew that Mary's attendance was only to please 
 Eleanor, and that Eleanor knew it ; and yet, kneeling 
 at her side, he felt that there was a conception of 
 the rite in which Mary's polite acquiescence was 
 enough, and that Eleanor had it. But then the 
 spiritual reach of Eleanor seemed to include every- 
 thing, and he thought of the sheet let down from 
 Heaven. 
 
 After breakfast Mary asked him to come out for 
 a walk. Whatever had been the cause of her curi- 
 ous abstraction in the train she was now completely 
 mistress of herself. He concluded that, meeting 
 him after an interval in which he had lost both 
 his mother and father, she had expected to find 
 him sentimental, and was prepared to be sympa- 
 thetic. Perhaps she had even been a little hurt 
 that her sympathy wasn't needed. Now she was 
 evidently relieved that it wasn't. She was no senti- 
 mentalist and, as she said, the thunder had cleared 
 the air. There was no trace of irony in her man- 
 ner now. She was the best of companions out-of-
 
 298 THE CATFISH 
 
 doors; loping along with a smooth stride, quick 
 to notice, but with a light hand upon scenery, keen 
 to catch a meaning, but not over-anxious to thrash 
 it out, and, best of all, easy to be silent with. 
 
 As they walked in the washed air over swelling 
 country that, to George's western eyes, had a curi- 
 ous urbanity from the absence of rocks and under- 
 growth, along unfenced roads, and by bridle-paths 
 through orderly, hyacinth-paved woods, she showed 
 an active interest in his affairs. Did he mean to stop 
 in Barstow, and would his more responsible position 
 give him opportunities for working out any of the 
 ideas he had hinted at in his letters to Darragh? 
 Conscious that the ideas hinted at were very vague, 
 he felt rather ashamed at her remembering them, 
 but her interest was bracing. He felt as if he had 
 made a new pact with her upon a sounder though 
 less personal basis than before. Somehow they 
 had reached an understanding without his " having 
 it out " with her, and if there was something unex- 
 plained, there was enough in common between them 
 for comfortable terms. When they parted that 
 night she gave him friendly eyes with her hand, 
 and he felt that she, too, had found an adjustment 
 that satisfied her. He was glad that she found 
 or made it inconvenient to travel by the same train
 
 THE CATFISH 299 
 
 with him back to London in the morning. Disturb- 
 ing and perplexing though it had been, there was 
 an experience that he did- not wish diluted. To 
 the end of his life he would cherish the memory of 
 her swift movement in the train.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FOR some time the affairs of the bank had 
 been in a state of uncertainty. They were 
 not unprosperous, but they had reached a point at 
 which a definite choice of future policy had to 
 be taken. It was a question of admitting new 
 shareholders or amalgamating with a larger con- 
 cern. There were meetings of directors, in which 
 George took only a languid interest. He felt that 
 neither alternative pleased him, but when he came 
 to ask himself why, he found that the reason was 
 nothing more than an instinctive dislike to corpora- 
 tions. Personal enterprise was one thing, and pub- 
 lic organization another, but he distrusted any 
 separation of investing from executive interests for 
 the purpose of private gain. 
 
 When Walter finally told him that the balance 
 of opinion was in favor of absorption into the 
 Western Counties Bank, George knew that he had 
 come to a crisis in his life. 
 
 "Supposing I stand out?" he said. 
 
 " Of course you can if you like," said Walter 
 300
 
 THE CATFISH 301 
 
 rather sorely, " but unless you have some very strong 
 reason I don't think you ought to raise objections 
 at this stage. It is a natural development of busi- 
 ness, and from what we can make out it is bound 
 to be to our advantage. Why do you wish to 
 complicate matters ? " 
 
 " My notion was to simplify them by standing 
 out altogether," said George. 
 
 " Why, have you heard of anything? " said Wal- 
 ter quickly. 
 
 George laughed at his eagerness and said : 
 
 " No, but I should like to look round me for a 
 bit." 
 
 Walter shook his head. " You won't find a bet- 
 ter opportunity than this," he said. 
 
 " No, but I might make one," said George, who 
 was beginning to enjoy Walter's mystification, 
 though his own purpose was by no means clear, 
 and certainly not with the idea of immediate profit. 
 He had become possessed of an overwhelming de- 
 sire for a free hand. Walter evidently thought 
 him unwise, but agreed to find out what his interest 
 in the bank was worth in the terms of the proposed 
 amalgamation. 
 
 The offer was not large, but George decided to 
 take it. His first idea was to realize all his re-
 
 302 THE CATFISH 
 
 sources. That raised another question. Walter, 
 who was to be married at Christmas, had been talk- 
 ing vaguely about trying to let Bourneside. He 
 wanted to live in Cleeve. There was nothing in 
 the terms of Mr. Tracy's will to forbid this, so 
 long as the property was not neglected, but George 
 could not bear to think of Bourneside in the hands 
 of strangers. He asked Walter if he would make 
 Bourneside a part of the readjustment of interests, 
 and Walter jumped at the opportunity. His only 
 concern was for George. 
 
 "Of course, if you are thinking of turning gen- 
 tleman-farmer, I dare say you could grub along," he 
 said. " It seems rather a feeble thing to do at 
 your age, but you've enough capital to stand your 
 losses until you can catch on to a good thing." 
 
 George let the idea of a gentleman- farmer remain 
 as the ostensible reason for his apparent foolishness. 
 Since his father's death he had managed Bourne- 
 side, and had begun to see possibilities that were 
 worth developing. He did not mean to rely on 
 them for his entire income, but they would serve 
 as a pretext, and he did not wish to scandalize Wal- 
 ter by telling him that the " good thing " was pre- 
 senting itself to his imagination more and more 
 clearly in the form of a shop.
 
 THE CATFISH 303 
 
 All his observations, conscious or unconscious, in 
 London and Barstow, seemed to bring out the fact 
 that the shop in a wide sense of the word 
 was the weakest point in the commercial organiza- 
 tion. It was the purveyor from the grocer to 
 the theatrical manager who was the duffer. The 
 public was all right, and if the manufacturer was 
 not, his subordinates were. ;< The men are splen- 
 did," might be said with truth of almost any de- 
 partment of industry. More and more he was 
 learning to admire the men who did the work. 
 But between them and the public was the middle- 
 man. So far from being unnecessary, the middle- 
 man was getting more and more important as the 
 social organization grew more complicated. People 
 hadn't time or wouldn't take the trouble to look 
 for what they wanted; they took what they could 
 get. Everything depended upon the middleman, 
 and at present he represented the lowest level of in- 
 telligence in the community. He was a barrier be- 
 tween healthy supply and demand; because of him 
 the best work could not find a market. There were 
 the big stores, of course, but they were out for 
 dividends, not shopkeeping, and they flourished on 
 people's laziness rather than their judgment ; and all 
 the experiments in what might be called the higher
 
 304 THE CATFISH 
 
 shopkeeping seemed to be made by sentimental ama- 
 teurs. They relied, so to speak, on their beautiful 
 eyes. 
 
 The more George thought about it, the more con- 
 vinced he was that his game was to be some sort 
 of purveyor an interpreter between the producer 
 and the consumer. But the matter needed a great 
 deal of consideration; it was important to begin 
 by purveying the right thing. On the whole he was 
 inclined to believe that he ought to begin with 
 something ornamental, or, at any rate, more or less 
 in 'the nature of a luxury. For some reason or 
 other and it was connected in his mind with the 
 practical value of the esthetic instinct people 
 were far more discriminating about their lux- 
 uries than they were about their necessities. He 
 must begin at the top. At the same time he 
 must begin with something in general demand and 
 something, moreover, that did not need special 
 training in the purveyor. A newspaper or a the- 
 ater the commonest attractions to the amateur 
 was ruled out from the beginning. 
 
 During the autumn George devoted all his en- 
 ergies to the improvement of Bourneside. The 
 public was not to be caught, any more than England 
 was to be saved, with cabbages, but he knew that,
 
 THE CATFISH 305 
 
 whatever he did, Bourneside would come into it 
 by and by. Since he had given his personal at- 
 tention to the estate he had been more than ever 
 impressed by the knowledge and skill with which 
 his father had managed it. His main idea had 
 been the preciousness of the soil, so that his culti- 
 vation, though not technically so, had been intensive. 
 Toward the end of his life he had specialized in 
 market gardening. The two nearer fields had been 
 kept for the purposes of a small dairy farm, but 
 Gardiner's field had been plowed and enriched and 
 turned over to small fruit and vegetables. 
 
 The place was now in the best condition for 
 scientific experiments. Intensive culture was very 
 much in the air, and George was considering the 
 advisability of getting over a man from France 
 when there fell into his hands Abercrombie's Ev- 
 eryman His Own Gardener, which Oliver Gold- 
 smith declined to revise on the grounds that " the 
 style was best suited to the subject of which it 
 treated " and that it required " nothing at his 
 hands." Abercrombie sent him to McPhail, Nicol 
 and Knight, and to the still earlier work of London 
 and Wise, The Retired Gardn'r, published in 1706. 
 
 In these books George found the methods of the 
 " new gardening " described in detail, and it seemed
 
 306 THE CATFISH 
 
 reasonable to suppose that a system pursued nearly 
 two hundred years ago with regard to the peculiari- 
 ties of English climate and soil would be the best 
 for his purpose. He decided to do without the 
 Frenchman. 
 
 He found an enthusiastic supporter in Andrews, 
 the young man who had succeeded Dicky Dando. 
 As they worked among their frames and cloches 
 red and blue bell glasses being the last proof of 
 George's insanity to Walter and Amelia Andrews 
 was never tired of talking about Mr. Tracy and re- 
 gretting that he had not lived to share the dis- 
 covery of " them old books ". From what George 
 could make out, it was only a sturdy British preju- 
 dice that had kept his father from adopting the 
 French methods. He had talked to Andrews about 
 them. George liked to think that he was taking 
 up the work where his father left it off, and to 
 remember that, at the end, they had been associated 
 in The Yeoman's Year Book. Paying for its 
 publication had been his first pious duty, and it 
 presently brought him interesting correspondence. 
 Apart from the filial duty, George soon found 
 that he was taking a keen pleasure in the work for 
 its own sake. 
 
 He had a good deal of his father's passion for
 
 THE CATFISH 307 
 
 the soil, and once awakened by practise it seemed 
 to coordinate his more occult feelings about na- 
 ture. As he sauntered home earthy from Gar- 
 diner's field in the evening, it amused him to 
 think that the Waterfall nodded approvingly. Un- 
 doubtedly he belonged to the Bourne. Meanwhile 
 he kept his eyes open for an opportunity to find 
 expression for his more public interests. He had 
 decided that he must find it in Barstow. London 
 was too solid at any rate, for a beginning. 
 Somehow his father's ideas about him were coming 
 true, after all. He had found a base; now he must 
 get into the skirmishing line. 
 
 The opportunity presented itself quite suddenly 
 in the shape of a corner shop for sale at the top 
 of the hill by which one climbed out of Barstow 
 into Cleeve. The position could hardly be bet- 
 tered; it was both central and commanding. The 
 shop belonged to a draper named Foy whose de- 
 clining affairs, as they filtered through the bank, 
 had for a long time excited George's mingled 
 sympathy and impatience. 
 
 Unwilling to disturb Walter before he was ready 
 to begin, George arranged with Foy to take over 
 the premises from the end of the year. The trans- 
 action would make a big hole in his capital, but
 
 3 o8 THE CATFISH 
 
 the risk had to be taken, and if tHe experiment 
 failed, he would have little difficulty in finding a 
 tenant for the shop. There was a sporting attrac- 
 tion in starting where another man had come to 
 grief. 
 
 The obvious thing was to begin by selling the 
 produce of Bourneside. There would be no lack of 
 supplies, for George's short experience as a market 
 gardener told him that no kind of producer suffered 
 more from the greed and stupidity of the middle- 
 man. George knew a dozen farmers who would 
 welcome a wholesale buyer content with reasonable 
 profits. But for various reasons he decided that it 
 would be inadvisable to start as a greengrocer. It 
 was necessary to make a little splash. 
 
 Directly after Walter's wedding George went up 
 to London and called on Mrs. Glanville. When she 
 had done crying out at the improvement in his ap- 
 pearance, the tan of him, the breadth of his shoul- 
 ders, and his knowing look of being up to some- 
 thing, he said : 
 
 " What's the mpst important thing in the world ? " 
 
 " Frocks," she said emphatically, " and thereby 
 hangs a tale. Kate Flanders is on her beam ends." 
 
 " Then we'll right her," he said, and proceeded 
 to tell Mrs. Glanville what he was up to. She was
 
 ,THE CATFISH 309 
 
 attracted by the general idea, but was doubtful 
 about Kate Flanders. 
 
 " You'll never get her away from London," she 
 said, " but I'll speak to her if you like." 
 
 " No, you don't," he said. " But if I may tell 
 Miss Flanders that you'll come to Barstow for your 
 frocks ?" 
 
 " Ah, you'll succeed as a shopkeeper," said Mrs. 
 Glanville quietly. 
 
 When he went to Hanover Square he observed 
 that Kate Flanders made hats as well as frocks. 
 There was a single hat on a tall stem in the win- 
 dow ; black with an eye of green. " It's like a 
 sin," he said to himself with a chuckle, as he opened 
 the door. 
 
 Kate received him gloomily, surrounded by ac- 
 counts, in an upper room. Evidently his name had 
 conveyed nothing to her, though she remembered 
 his face directly she saw him and gave him a cold 
 bow. She made no sign of wondering why he had 
 come, but eyed him with the same hostile expres- 
 sion she might have worn to the dunning creditor 
 he surmised to have been in her mind when his 
 name was announced. Meeting her again, he felt 
 that he liked Kate extraordinarily; her back-to-the- 
 wall attitude gave him confidence and geniality
 
 3io THE CATFISH 
 
 as if he were dealing with a badly-used creature, 
 and had to prove from the beginning that all men 
 were not liars. It would be amusing to humanize 
 her. When he spoke of Mrs. Glanville, she said at 
 once: 
 
 " Why don't you tell her she wears her stays too 
 short? I've done my best." 
 
 He cheerfully said that he would, and then came 
 straight to his business with: 
 
 " I'm opening a shop in Barstow, and I want a 
 dressmaker. I stand the racket ; you run the show." 
 
 For a long time she would not listen to him. 
 The salary he offered was all right, but what scope 
 would she have in Barstow? 
 
 " You'll have less to uneducate," he said. 
 
 " That's true," she admitted, with a gleam of 
 appreciation in her eyes that reminded him of a 
 vicious mare's. " Still," she went on, " Barstow 
 is a small place." 
 
 " There's the whole West of England," he said. 
 
 "They come to London," said Kate. 
 
 " Not when we've started," he assured her. 
 
 She eyed him suspiciously, and said: 
 
 " May I ask what you are doing it for, Mr. 
 Tracy?" 
 
 " For fun," he said frankly.
 
 THE CATFISH 311 
 
 That impressed her, and he followed up his ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 " Look here, Miss Flanders," he said, jumping 
 up from his chair, " I want you to help me. I 
 believe there's a very big opportunity for anybody 
 who is prepared to treat business as a game and 
 take the profits for granted. My notion is a team 
 of specialists, like yourself, each with an abso- 
 lutely free hand as long as they are loyal to the 
 concern. I provide the premises, pay the salaries, 
 take all the risks and find all the materials. If 
 the thing succeeds we can arrange a system of 
 profit-sharing; if it fails I have had my fun. 
 As you see, I'm not doing anything startlingly new; 
 it simply means that I am beginning shopkeeping 
 at the other end." 
 
 Like Mrs. Glanville, she was attracted by the 
 general idea, though she doubted the prospects for 
 her own department. Finally she agreed to come 
 to him for a year, if she might bring her own as- 
 sistants, for whom she seemed to have a savage 
 affection. 
 
 When George left Hanover Square he was as- 
 tonished at the rapidity with .which his ideas were 
 taking shape. One thing suggested another. Olv 
 viously the next thing to frocks was a place to wear
 
 3 i2 THE CATFISH 
 
 them in. He must have a department of house 
 furnishing and decoration. That suggested and 
 explained the connection there had always been in 
 his mind between Kate Flanders and Mr. Lindrop. 
 When he called to see Lindrop he was more than 
 ever impressed by the fact that the artist was be- 
 ing wasted. His genius was for handling and ar- 
 ranging beautiful things; not for painting pictures 
 of them. If you got to the bottom of it, the real 
 meaning of his art to him was that it brought him 
 the attention of pretty women. It was an extended 
 sexual attraction. Looking at his Dantesque head, 
 with its liquid apprehensive eyes, while Lindrop 
 talked about the incomprehensible success of mere 
 craftmanship, George thought with grim amuse- 
 ment that his profile alone was worth the salary. 
 He would be the rage of feminine Cleeve. But 
 Lindrop needed careful management. Being an un- 
 conscious humbug he was naturally bothered by 
 delicate scruples about the dignity of his art. He 
 was full of ideas about house decoration, but he 
 could not get over the difference between the studio 
 and the shop. George saw that he had better leave 
 him to Mrs. Glanville. She asked Lindrop to din- 
 ner and in a rose-tinted twilight talked to him about 
 William Morris and woman's craving for beauty
 
 THE CATFISH 313 
 
 in the home; and he agreed at any rate to advise 
 upon the decoration of Tracy's. 
 
 The first practical step taken, George found that 
 the difficulty was to know where to stop. Every- 
 body he spoke to had some new suggestion to offer 
 based upon the shortcomings of the average shop- 
 keeper. There was every evidence that whether 
 Tracy's succeeded or failed the experiment was 
 worth trying. But it was necessary to examine 
 the suggestions; to distinguish between the genuine 
 grievance and mere grumbling and stupidity. Al- 
 though George's aim was finally the department 
 store, he saw that it would be a mistake to start 
 with too many departments at once. Intensive 
 rather than extensive culture was the safest policy. 
 Recognizing that women were the best guides, men 
 being too much concerned about the financial ques- 
 tion, which he was deliberately deferring, he held 
 consultations with Mrs. Glanville, Mrs. Raymond, 
 Mrs. Dove and Kate Flanders. Their opinions 
 gave him a pretty wide field to go upon, and as a 
 result, he decided to begin with dressmaking and 
 millinery, house decoration, a book-shop and cir- 
 culating library, and a tea-room. There was not a 
 book-shop worth the name in Barstow or Cleeve; 
 hardly, when he came to think of it, in London.
 
 314 THE CATFISH 
 
 There were institutions for the automatic sale and 
 circulation of classics and half a dozen of the more 
 popular novelists, but there was no attempt to deal 
 intelligently with the great and increasing mass of 
 modern literature. On the one hand good books 
 were being written and printed hardly pub- 
 lished and on the other people were crying out 
 for good books to read. Grateful memory of the 
 only bookseller's assistant in London who seemed 
 to know the names of more than Shakespeare, 
 Tennyson, Longfellow and six living novelists, en- 
 abled George to find the man he wanted without 
 delay. The tea-room was an obvious attraction, 
 and a good manageress could easily be found in 
 Barstow. 
 
 George had the whole scheme, as he said, cut 
 and dried before he spoke to Darragh about it. 
 He hardly knew why he delayed doing so, except 
 that Darragh had a way of throwing cold water 
 on things by silence. Darragh, who was now be- 
 ginning to make a reputation, though he did not 
 sell many pictures, was sympathetic with a reserva- 
 tion. His fear was not that George would fail, 
 but that he would succeed. 
 
 " .You'll get swallowed up in Tracy's," he said.
 
 THE CATFISH 315 
 
 " It's my game," said George, " my picture, my 
 poem." 
 
 " Yes," said Darragh quietly, " but one doesn't 
 paint a picture or write a poem for the sake of the 
 signature." 
 
 " It goes a long way in the market," said George. 
 
 "There's price," said Darragh, as he squeezed 
 a worm of paint on his palette, " and there's 
 value." 
 
 George felt that he must make some allowance 
 for a man who suffered from the difference between 
 the two, and he said : 
 
 " The value is to me ; it amuses me enormously. 
 And I don't think the thing will be entirely without 
 value from a general point of view." 
 
 " I'm sure it won't," said Darragh, " something 
 of the sort is badly wanted. It's you I'm thinking 
 about." 
 
 George could not quite understand Darragh's 
 point of view. Clearly it was not the shop idea 
 that repelled him, for he entirely and amusedly 
 approved of the enlistment of Lindrop. He pre- 
 dicted that Lindrop's department would run away 
 from all the others. He could tell George of any 
 number of good craftsmen in every branch of
 
 316 THE CATFISH 
 
 decorative art, from furniture to jewelry, who 
 could not find a proper market for their work. 
 There never was a time when so much good stuff 
 was being produced, and there never was a time 
 when the general standard of taste was so high. 
 But it could only be indulged by happy accident. 
 The producers couldn't afford to advertise, and 
 people didn't come poking round the studios and 
 workshops. 
 
 " So that the real arbiter of taste," said Darragh, 
 " is the buyer for the big shops which can and 
 do advertise." 
 
 All this was so encouraging to George that he 
 did not worry about Darragh's vague dissatisfac- 
 tion at the idea of Tracy's. After all, one must 
 allow something for the peculiarities of the artistic 
 mind. George would have liked to compare notes 
 with Mary Festing, but she was away with Mrs. 
 Darragh in Cornwall. 
 
 While Tracy's was being got ready, George 
 had Kate Flanders and Lindrop down to stop 
 with him at Bourneside. It was very important 
 that they should get on well together. Amelia 
 accepted the situation in a nil admirari spirit. 
 She had always known that George was mad, and 
 Mr. Lindrop was a duck. She hoped that George
 
 THE CATFISH 
 
 would not go to smash before she was married, 
 because she wanted Mr. Lindrop to do her drawing- 
 room. It was a good thing that Harry was in 
 India; men were so down on anybody with a 
 spark of imagination. The attitude of Kate Flan- 
 ders, whom Amelia christened " Mrs. Siddons," to 
 Lindrop, was a source of great amusement to 
 George. In the presence of a good-looking woman 
 Lindrop simply could not help languishing, and 
 Kate had too keen a sense of his professional value 
 to resent his attentions. " He's a sickly fool, but 
 he knows," was her comment. 
 
 By the time Walter returned from his honey- 
 moon in Switzerland the name Tracy was already 
 up over the shop at the top of Barton Hill. As 
 George had expected, the name stuck in Walter's 
 throat, but the good-humored chaff to which he 
 was subjected at the club kept him from taking 
 the matter too seriously. The businesslike way 
 in which George had set to work had impressed 
 people; and the division of opinion as to his chances 
 of success helped to soften the blow for his brother. 
 It enabled him to express concern on purely prac- 
 tical grounds. 
 
 Tracy's opened quietly irt April not on the 
 first, as Amelia professed to desire. George al-
 
 3i8 THE CATFISH 
 
 ready saw that the uncertain quantity in his " team " 
 was going to make the running at any rate for 
 spectacular purposes. Before the fitting up of 
 Tracy's was completed Lindrop had received 
 commissions to carry out " interiors " in country 
 houses. This was satisfactory, for several reasons: 
 it kept Lindrop occupied, the transactions were 
 very profitable in proportion to the cost of labor 
 and materials, and they did not arouse the jealousy 
 of local tradesmen. Such commissions had for- 
 merly been executed from London, and the capacity 
 to undertake them was a credit to the town. 
 George did not mean to stop there; he would have 
 to come into competition 'all down the scale; but 
 he wished to hurt the susceptibilities of his neigh- 
 bors as little as possible at the beginning. 
 
 The merits of Kate Flanders, who, with her two 
 assistants, lived on the premises, were not so im- 
 mediately recognized. Her models in the window 
 provoked discussion, which automatically benefited 
 the tea-room, but orders were slow in coming in. 
 George observed that in matters of dress women 
 are absolutely dependent on a lead. Presently the 
 duchess came to Kate for an evening gown, and 
 after that Kate's hands were full. The duchess, 
 who was a lively young woman of part American
 
 THE CATFISH 319 
 
 birth, expressed a friendly interest in Tracy's. 
 She remembered old Mr. Tracy in connection with 
 agricultural shows, and talked to George about in- 
 tensive culture. Altogether George had no reason 
 to be dissatisfied with his beginning. Something 
 must be allowed for curiosity, but he had other 
 cards to play before it should be exhausted, and 
 the book-shop, at any rate, sank into grateful ac- 
 ceptance with the quiet security of a long- felt 
 want.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IN less than three years Tracy's commanded 
 the West of England. George was not really 
 astonished at his own success. He had done 
 nothing remarkable. As he told Kate Flanders, he 
 had merely begun shopkeeping at the other end 
 the right end. In the transition from the commer- 
 cial to the financial epoch the practise of shop- 
 keeping had ceased to correspond with the theory. 
 He had retranslated the theory into the terms of 
 practise demanded by the new conditions. He had 
 in practise, instead of only in theory, given the 
 public what the public wanted. 
 
 The process had been absorbingly interesting. 
 It had used the whole of him. Instead of being 
 a mere matter of intelligent observation it had in- 
 volved the deepest researches into the psychology 
 of his period; researches in which intuition was a 
 far better guide than reason. There was not a 
 queer fancy of his childhood that he could afford 
 to ignore. A smile or a stammer had often told 
 him more than the most elaborate explanations 
 
 320
 
 THE CATFISH 321 
 
 on the part of a customer. The irrational fancy 
 was the thing that really mattered. By the time 
 the need was reasoned out it was already being 
 clumsily supplied by his rivals. Facts were always 
 too late. They were the tombstones of desire. 
 In anticipating a demand, a novel or a play or a 
 poem was more to his purpose than a Blue Book 
 report or an article in a financial journal though 
 in the case of the play it was necessary to get at 
 it before it had been sterilized by the actor-manager. 
 "Is it accepted of song?" was flat commercial 
 wisdom from books to bacon. What the public 
 thought it wanted was often merely the leavings 
 of old financial tyranny. His profitable aim was 
 what the public wanted in its bones at two o'clock 
 
 in the morning; and speaking generally, what the 
 public wanted in its bones was the very best of 
 its kind that could be got at a reasonable price. 
 One of the first axioms he printed for the benefit 
 of his staff was : " Your best customer is the sub- 
 conscious mind." 
 
 All along he found that instead of straining after 
 new business he had to put the brake on. Possi- 
 bilities accumulated against him; it was a matter 
 of lifting sluices at the right moment. At an early 
 date sheer pressure compelled him to open a green-
 
 322 THE CATFISH 
 
 grocery department or, as he said, " let in the 
 Bourne " ; fruit, flowers and vegetables were fol- 
 lowed by butter, cheese and bacon, and now 
 Tracy's was the depot for a district. 
 
 As at the beginning, however, the house furnish- 
 ing and decoration department kept the lead. It 
 was here that the choice of material became em- 
 barrassing. On the one side were eager craftsmen, 
 long denied recognition; on the other householders 
 of every class, whose natural tastes had been bullied 
 or starved into acceptance of shoddy, making de- 
 lighted discoveries with : " That's what I want ! " 
 When Lindrop was offered a subordinate to take 
 what George called the " crude furnishing " off 
 his hands, he said humorously : " Oh, but I say, 
 you know, that's the crux of the whole thing. 
 You can trust a bally shop-girl to buy casement 
 cloth or wall-paper; it takes me to choose a kitchen 
 table." Down in Somerset George discovered a 
 small cabinet-maker who was turning out beautiful 
 furniture on Sheraton lines for little more than 
 the cost of the honest wood; George doubled his 
 prices and gave him a contract for all he could 
 make, and a workshop into the bargain, and found 
 the transaction profitable. Then, in South Wales, 
 there was a potter, a retired soldier who was re-
 
 THE CATFISH 323 
 
 producing Chinese glazes, flambe, sang-de-boeuf 
 and peachblow, for his own amusement. He in- 
 troduced himself. He'd be awful glad, you know, 
 if Tracy's would give the stuff a chance. The 
 Bond Street people didn't seem to think there was 
 anything in it, and they rushed you so if they sold 
 it on commission. 
 
 In every department George worked from the 
 top downward. People can't afford to pay that 
 price ? Well, then, we must find something simpler 
 not a cheap imitation of the same thing. He 
 was as keen to get at the true inwardness of the 
 factory girl's request for " something tasty " as to 
 satisfy the colonel's demand for " the sort of 
 anchovy paste that we used to get when I was a 
 boy, sir ! " It was Kate Flanders who created a 
 mode at fifteen shillings that became historical in 
 servants' "black." 
 
 George was not in it for philanthropy; what he 
 called his fun absolutely depended on making the 
 business pay; but he soon saw that Tracy's 
 was going to be beneficial to the neighborhood. 
 It was not only that it supported the better sort 
 of producer, agriculturalist, manufacturer and 
 craftsman, but it reacted upon the other shops in 
 the town. They grumbled at the competition, but
 
 324 THE CATFISH 
 
 were driven to consider their ways in the effort 
 to meet it. And since in several directions the 
 competition touched London rather than Barstow, 
 there were two sides even to that. It encouraged 
 the local habit in shopping, and Tracy's was not 
 always handy. 
 
 From the first George recognized that everything 
 depended upon the staff. He was the impresario 
 rather than the master, firm but sympathetic. The 
 tea-room had quickly become a small restaurant 
 and ascended to the top floor with a mess-room 
 for the staff, and George generally lunched with 
 the members at liberty at his hour. In contact 
 iwith simpler clients Kate Flanders had become 
 more human, and softened the desperate efficiency 
 of her style in its man-killing aim without losing 
 its originality. Lindrop had his moods, and there 
 was always the fear that he would get married by 
 a wealthy widow, but he had clearly found his 
 game. In choosing subordinates George went for 
 essentials. " Smartness " was no use to him ; he 
 wanted imagination. He was not surprised to find 
 that previous experience was no proof of suitabil- 
 ity. Had he not read in the speech of a great 
 captain of industry to commercial travelers: 
 " Your business is to persuade people to buy some-
 
 THE CATFISH 325 
 
 thing they don't want." He found his men in all 
 sorts of unexpected places. Thus, the manager of 
 the drug department was a young Irish dramatist 
 he had met in Darragh's studio. When somebody 
 said something to George about the romance of 
 shopkeeping, he laughed and furtively tied a knot 
 in his handkerchief. Afterward he went into his 
 office and wrote in his book of maxims : " The 
 romance of shopkeeping is in the cold facts." 
 
 Unfortunately Tracy's was his game, his pic- 
 ture, his poem. Between it and Bourneside he 
 was realizing himself in every fiber. Or almost. 
 Sometimes when he was tired he was dimly con- 
 scious of a part of himself that walked lonely in a 
 far place of unanswered questions. In his dreams 
 the place became the Grove. It was full of 
 cherished and banished memories all jumbled up 
 together; the shadow of his mother's face on the 
 wall, the picture of the Servian woman, the broken 
 iris, Mary's passion of tears in the nursery and her 
 swift homing to him in the train. Sometimes when 
 Mary moved across his dream the fir-trees lifted 
 and sighed and he said indignantly, " I don't, I 
 don't," as he had denied the accusation of writing 
 " po'try". Oddly enough, Rahab's window had 
 faded from his dreams. Once he found himself
 
 326 THE CATFISH 
 
 looking for it and its place was taken by the window 
 of the Resurrection. 
 
 Waking, he tried to straighten things out. It 
 was unreasonable that Mary Festing should haunt 
 him in this way. He doubted, now, even if he 
 loved her. She was too cool and remote. And 
 anyhow, she had said that love in its completeness 
 was " horrid". If it had been Mrs. Lorimer who 
 haunted his dreams he could have understood it. 
 In his waking thoughts he admitted that she was 
 a subject for remorse. He took the trouble to 
 find out what had become of her, and was glad to 
 hear that she seemed to have reformed. But, what- 
 ever the moralists might say, the skeleton at his 
 feast of life was never Mrs. Lorimer but always 
 Mary Festing. He still owed her one but now 
 in another meaning. She had some sort of claim 
 upon him. What it was he did not know, though 
 sometimes he had the idea that Darragh and Mary 
 were talking about it in Chelsea. 
 
 Amelia was now married, and Andrews and his 
 wife lived in the house and looked after George. 
 He had turned the old nursery at the top of the 
 house into a sort of study. It was there that he 
 often had the sense of a part of himself walking 
 lonely in a far place. He put it down to physical
 
 THE CATFISH 327 
 
 reasons. The place got no sun. Indeed, the whole 
 front of the house was rather gloomy. All the 
 rooms were green lit. When he had time he 
 would carry out his boyish intention of turning 
 the back of the house into the front. 
 
 At any rate he was all right with the Bourne. 
 Walking beside the stream, he felt it flowing to 
 Tracy's. He wished that the stream were big 
 enough to bear in fact, as it bore in imagination, 
 the produce of Bourneside and the neighborhood 
 into Barstow. It amused him to think that instead 
 of "Doom!" the Waterfall now said "Boom!" 
 
 It was upon this full tide of activity that he met 
 Lesbia Garnett. He met her at Mrs. Glanville's. 
 But before he met her he had heard about her and 
 was attracted by what he heard ; her name sug- 
 gested fire and softness combined, and there were 
 stories about her courage and generosity and not 
 so much unconventionally as apparent ignorance of 
 any guide to conduct but the impulse of the mo- 
 ment. She had saved a child from drowning in the 
 Regent's Canal, and befriended a woman of the 
 streets, and she was not yet twenty-six. People 
 spoke her name like the sound of a trumpet. She 
 was the mingled pride and astonishment of her 
 father, a widower, who wrote books about common
 
 328 THE CATFISH 
 
 law. He couldn't account for her, anyhow, was the 
 way Mrs. Glanville described his attitude. 
 
 The meeting was arranged, with a certain amount 
 of joking which George thought rather tiresome. 
 He was prepared to be disappointed. But the 
 moment he saw Lesbia Garnett he knew that she 
 was the woman for him. She was an amber-eyed, 
 golden-skinned blonde, tall and deep-chested, with 
 the voice of a Creole. The softness implied in her 
 name was more apparent than the fire; she moved 
 slowly and spoke indolently, though with singular 
 directness. When she laughed it was : " God's in 
 His Heaven." 
 
 George never knew how many people there were 
 in the room that June evening. In his memory 
 of it there was an applauding crowd, and there 
 must have been a band. When he was introduced 
 to Lesbia he held her hand for a moment in perfect 
 unconsciousness and then led her to a seat. Listen- 
 ing to her first remarks, he noted with approval 
 that she was a person of no great intelligence but 
 strong good sense. He had expected to find her 
 tiresomely brilliant or wilfully erratic. As he bent 
 to her, talking with a curious earnestness about 
 his own affairs, as if they had to be made clear, 
 she sat up looking half scared, half amused, but
 
 THE CATFISH 329 
 
 evidently not displeased. He found himself ob- 
 serving : " She's as golden-hearted as golden- 
 headed." 
 
 Afterward, he could never be quite sure that 
 he did not call her " Lesbia " from the beginning. 
 Her other name was an impertinence, an irrelevance 
 except as it suggested her eyes. For them he 
 found extravagant epithets even " leonine." 
 They flared when she spoke of Rome. And gar- 
 nets should certainly go on her golden throat. She 
 answered his questions about her tastes and doings 
 with agitated obedience, as if he had a right to 
 know. Yes, she had been to Barstow or rather 
 Cleeve. It made her sleepy. No, she didn't care 
 much about walking, though she loved the country, 
 particularly in autumn, to sit about in an orchard 
 and eat grapes. She was horribly greedy. 
 
 At some point she said : " You are taller than 
 I expected, and I thought you would have a beard," 
 but whether she compared him with a previous 
 description or the destined man of her imagination 
 was not clear, nor did it seem to matter. Unless 
 he were very much mistaken she was ready for 
 him, or, for the matter of that, for any likable 
 man. He did not suppose that she had, nor did 
 he wish her to have, any great quickness or subtlety
 
 330 THE CATFISH 
 
 of emotion. Almost any likable man might rouse 
 her emotions, and once roused, they would " set " 
 like blossom. Loyalty would be almost a defect 
 in her. It would have seemed natural to buy her. 
 She must be snapped up. While they were talking 
 in their corner George was dimly conscious of her 
 small, rather prim- faced father, somewhere in the 
 offing, putting up his glasses with an expression 
 of "I say!" 
 
 Somebody asked Lesbia to sing, and she laughed 
 appealingly and said : " Oh, I can't sing to-night," 
 and George scowled at the disturber. It was only 
 when he understood that the young people were 
 preparing for an impromptu dance Dolly Glan- 
 ville almost jerked his chair away from under him 
 that he suddenly recognized that he must have 
 been behaving in an extraordinary manner. 
 
 He did not care in the least. He meant to have 
 her, and the apologies could be made afterward. 
 When they rose, Lesbia came to his arms as if the 
 dance had been arranged from the beginning of 
 all time. She looked a little dazed, and he said: 
 "Have I been shouting at you?" for that was 
 what he felt. She shook her head, with half- 
 closed eyes, and her hand involuntarily tightened 
 on his shoulder. Oh, undoubtedly she was ready.
 
 THE CATFISH 331 
 
 He gave himself up to the fun of the evening, 
 perfectly aware of a friendly simmer of curiosity, 
 but waiting his chance. Mr. Garnett made nervous 
 attempts to engage him in conversation, following 
 him about, getting spun round by the dancers, 
 until Mrs. Glanville had almost to hold him down 
 in her lap as she said afterward. George was 
 not ready for Mr. Garnett. This chance came 
 with the sudden recognition of curtains. He 
 danced her down the room and out, half wishing 
 that he had to cut his way with her through the 
 friendly crowd, and discovered the little alcove 
 where Dolly kept her books. 
 
 " Will you marry me ? " he said, and she, still 
 panting from the dance, said : " Oh, yes ! " but 
 desperately rather than eagerly. He laughed ex- 
 ultantly, with her hands in his. " But you must 
 talk to my father about it," she said, and dodged 
 him. He was well content; if roused she might 
 cry or even faint. With " Come along, then," he 
 took her back, and they were dancing again before 
 anybody but the more observant had missed them. 
 " Don't say a word," he said when he released her. 
 
 When at last he was alone with her and her 
 father, Mr. Garnett finished the sentence that he 
 seemed to have been beginning all the evening:
 
 332 THE CATFISH 
 
 "I say! You're a tremendous fellow!" George 
 laughed uproariously. He felt a tremendous fel- 
 low. " I'll explain the whole thing, sir," he said, 
 but Lesbia put her hands over her ears and said: 
 " Oh, not to-night," and then, with an adorable 
 duck of her head on to her father's arm, " Oh, 
 I'm ashamed." 
 
 George wanted to walk with them to Cornwall 
 Terrace, where they lived. It was absurd, he said, 
 that anybody should want to drive on this perfect 
 night. But Mr. Garnett said, " No, no, Lesbia 
 must go to bed," and kept edging between her and 
 George on the pavement, while the servant whistled 
 for a cab, as if he thought that George really meant 
 to pick her up and carry her off to his den-oh, as 
 Mrs. Glanville said. 
 
 When they had gone, George followed them on 
 foot, to see her house, and walked round Regent's 
 Park before he returned to his hotel in the Strand. 
 He remembered that he had not kissed her, and 
 was glad. It was perfectly ridiculous that they 
 could not be married to-night. The reflection that 
 the lapse which had kept him from Mary Festing 
 had not entered his head in speaking to Lesbia 
 Garnett made him halt for a moment, but he said, 
 " Oh, absurd ! " and went on again. He was
 
 ,THE CATFISH 333 
 
 older now; he saw things in proportion. Besides, 
 Lesbia was warmer, saner, more complete, more 
 human. He laughed out when he thought of his 
 previous conceptions of love; his pale moonsickness 
 for Mary Festing and his nasty craving for the 
 other. Oh, yes, Lesbia could and would laugh at 
 that. 
 
 He was at the house at nine o'clock the next 
 morning. She slipped into the room, shy for a 
 moment, and then they met breast to breast with 
 closed eyes. 
 
 "You're quite sure?" he said, holding her off 
 to see her eyes. 
 
 "If you love me," she said-, and- hid her face 
 again. She was absolutely perfect, he said to him- 
 self. She would not even pretend to a sudden 
 romantic passion. More than anything he felt his 
 extraordinary luck. It was quite obvious that any 
 good fellow might have had the same luck; he 
 had only come at the right moment. 
 
 "When will you marry me?" he said. 
 
 " Whenever you like," she said, keeping only 
 her eyes from him. He wanted to make it next 
 week, but she did not think that her father would 
 agree to such 
 
 " Common-sense ? " he said.
 
 334 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Yes common-sense," she said, with a wave 
 of color under her golden skin. 
 
 The interview with Mr. Garnett was good- 
 humored impatience on one side and technical 
 hesitation on the other. The only thing that 
 bothered Mr. Garnett was the absence of precedent. 
 If George could have stated a case the thing might 
 have been settled in five minutes. Mr. Garnett 
 admitted gloried in it that Lesbia always did 
 what she wanted, and, as far as George was con- 
 cerned, he was completely satisfied. His good 
 friend, Mrs. Glanville, was recommendation enough 
 for him. He was immensely complimentary about 
 the family name; Burroughs and Tracy had stood 
 for probity and dignity, and Tracy's was only 
 proof of adaptability to environment in these days 
 of more extended enterprise. 
 
 " But, I say, you know," he kept saying. " One 
 evening. Isn't it fearfully precipitate ? " 
 
 Recognizing the essential unpracticality of the 
 legal mind, George suppressed all practical argu- 
 ments such as that it always is fearfully precipi- 
 tate and talked of Lesbia's obvious desirability. 
 He couldn't have done better. He had the history 
 of Lesbia from the cradle, with fond paternal 
 chuckles over her headstrong, or rather, heart-
 
 THE CATFISH 335 
 
 strong ways. " Since her dear mother died she has 
 twirled me round her little finger." The origin of 
 the stories that George had heard about Lesbia 
 was made clear; it was evident that the paternal 
 mind had even colored the stories a little. With 
 secret amusement George recognized that the 
 father might have given to the most scandalous 
 adventurer as long as he were appreciative 
 what the lawyer made a business of hesitating to 
 bestow on himself. It was remarkable that Lesbia 
 hadn't been snapped up and gave a flattering view 
 of her taste. The truth was that the thing had 
 to be talked over, and when it had been sufficiently 
 talked over Mr. Garnett gave the blessing that he 
 had been more than ready to give at the beginning. 
 To the legal mind the discussion served all the 
 purposes of an extended courtship. 
 
 The swift courtship that followed was a deepen- 
 ing of delight. She was even simpler than he had 
 supposed; in some ways adorably stupid. If her 
 laugh said, " God's in His Heaven," her conduct 
 assumed that "All's right with the world." 
 Brought up against any evidence of cruelty or 
 meanness that most people learn to take for granted, 
 she blazed. " Horribly greedy " turned out to be 
 whatever the opposite for euphemism may be
 
 336 THE CATFISH 
 
 for a healthy appreciation of the good things 
 of life. She was never so happy as when basking 
 in the sun. Yet she was very far from having 
 the temperament of the odalisk her appearance 
 might have suggested. Her management of her 
 father's house indicated a real domesticity, and she 
 loved children. " She shall have hundreds of 
 children," said George to himself extravagantly. 
 
 Less from necessity than in order to test her 
 soundness, he told her that there had been another 
 woman. She used his own word. 
 
 " Nasty boy," she said, " you might have waited 
 for me." Then, after a moment, she added: 
 " But I expect you did her good." 
 
 Though he would not have dared to put the 
 thought into words, he felt that, somehow, she was 
 right. Both the lapse itself and his remorse for it 
 might be put down to his too idealistic conception 
 of human love. 
 
 They were married within the month, and he 
 carried her off to Spain. Acting on Mrs. Glan- 
 ville's advice, he had meant to take her South; 
 but they happened to break their journey at San 
 Sebastian, and so discovered the Basque Provinces. 
 For the next three weeks they loafed about in 
 villages with names, as Lesbia said, " like lizards,"
 
 THE CATFISH 337 
 
 her favorite beasts. They stopped at Durango; 
 where Carlism is talked under the wide portico of 
 the church, and Guernica, of the famous " Tree." 
 George played pelota with the men, and studied 
 their almost Chinese cultivation of the soil ; and the 
 girls would link arms with Lesbia as in soundless 
 alpargatas they trod the paseo on Sunday after- 
 noons to the bubble and squeak of the dulsinya and 
 tamboril. When George spoke of his wife, they 
 laughed knowingly. They called her " La Gaupa ", 
 and made her bare her head and carry a carnation 
 in her mouth, and taught her to dance the Zortzico 
 and to sing Gucrnicaco Arbola which is the 
 Basque national anthem. 
 
 It was only the feeling, that, having come so far, 
 they ought to see some of the lions, that made 
 them leave these friendly people and pay a flying 
 visit to Burgos, Madrid and Toledo. When the 
 train had ascended the narrow Pass of Pancorbo 
 and they were upon the tawny plain of Old Castile, 
 George began to feel vaguely disturbed. Some- 
 thing in the grave landscape called to a part of 
 him that was not fulfilled in his love for the tran- 
 quil woman at his side. He felt it most of all in 
 Toledo, that " cry in the desert " which embodies 
 the spiritual aspiration of Spain.
 
 338 THE CATFISH 
 
 Lesbia herself helped to interpret the feeling. 
 They were sitting one evening under the arcade 
 of a cafe in the Zocodover, the irregular place 
 which forms the social center of Toledo. Imme- 
 diately opposite to them was the horseshoe arch 
 that leads to the house of Cervantes, and Lesbia 
 began to tease George about " Don Quixote." 
 
 " There's something of him about you," she said, 
 " though you don't look it. There's a little central 
 George that doesn't belong to me, and I'm sure 
 there's a Dulcinea somewhere." 
 
 He said the obvious thing, but, holding his arm, 
 she said composedly: 
 
 " No, I'm the faithful Sancho Panza. But you 
 can tilt at your old windmills for her, so long as 
 you'll be nice and comfy with me." 
 
 It was then that there came up the steps under 
 the archway a tall woman bearing a water jar on 
 her head. Her eyes were grave and she walked 
 with dignity. Upon the level she began to cry 
 in a piercing tone, " A-gua fresca!" as if it were 
 the water of life. 
 
 " Isn't she like Mary Festing? " said Lesbia. 
 
 The likeness would not have struck him, but he 
 understood what she meant. It was in the charac- 
 ter of remoteness. He said something about the
 
 THE CATFISH 339 
 
 Moorish blood in Toledo, and remarked that when 
 he first met Mary Festing she made him think of 
 somebody out of the 'Arabian Nights. 
 
 "But do you know Mary Festing?" he said. 
 
 " I met her at Mrs. Glanville's," said Lesbia. 
 " I'm sure she's a darling, though she frightened 
 me a little." 
 
 George was beginning to feel that Mary Festing 
 was a confounded nuisance. 
 
 " Oh, Mary's too bright and good for anything/' 
 he said. 
 
 Lesbia laughed comfortably. 
 
 " Of course she doesn't appeal to men," she said, 
 " but I believe she would do for the little central 
 George. I shall cultivate her, and then when you're 
 tired of kisses you can go off together and talk 
 about souls." 
 
 At the time he could afford to enter into the 
 joke, but he hoped that Lesbia wasn't going to 
 keep it up. He had thought that he was done 
 with Mary Festing.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DIRECTLY after their return to Bourneside 
 George began to put his house in order. He 
 had now a leading motive in his vague ideas of 
 reconstruction. He would make the whole place 
 a setting for his jewel. She must have sun, plenty 
 of sun. Her ways must be wide and smooth, be- 
 cause she moved slowly and didn't much care for 
 walking. 
 
 Lesbia dismissed his proposal that they should 
 go into a cottage while the alterations were being 
 made; she wanted to watch her home a-building; 
 to have it grow in her heart, so that it should be 
 scamped neither in workmanship nor love. 
 She would hate to step into a ready-made paradise. 
 For the present they could picnic very well in a 
 corner among the dreams and bogies of his boy- 
 hood, and every evening, when the workmen were 
 gone, they would peer and kiss by candle-light 
 among the giant shadows of the empty unfinished 
 rooms. 
 
 George got down from London a young architect 
 340
 
 THE CATFISH 341 
 
 named Ledward, whose acquaintance he had made 
 through Darragh, and with Lindrop to supply 
 imagination, they held council together. The men 
 sat about and smoked cigarettes and argued, while 
 Lesbia Kate had f rocked her divinely was 
 made to stand here, to come in at that door, 
 or lean at that window. All agreed upon one 
 large room with a great hearth, and a wide 
 welcoming entrance from the flagged court, where 
 in childhood George had crept illicitly round to 
 the kitchen or to nip up the steps into the Orchard, 
 and a window looking west into the twilight of 
 the Side Lawn; but the angle of the hearth and 
 the turn of the staircase broad in the tread and 
 shallow in the rise, because of the way she moved 
 were matters that needed consideration. Be- 
 sides, as Lesbia insisted, there must be no disturbing 
 the general atmosphere of Bourneside. There 
 must be only a fulfilment of the dreams of his 
 boyhood. " As if they had flowered in the sun 
 that is, if you really are happy now?" It is to 
 be feared that Ledward and Lindrop had their 
 trials. 
 
 Ledward said austerely that the thing couldn't 
 be done. Sentiment was sentiment, and building 
 was building.
 
 342 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Is that why most modern houses are so incon- 
 venient, Mr. Ledward ? " said Lesbia sweetly. 
 
 Lindrop, who would have given her a Moorish 
 pavilion with Norman piers if she had asked for 
 it, backed her up. He said that modern architects 
 had no imagination. But when Ledward asked 
 him how he proposed to do it, he could only make 
 little noises in his throat and vague lines in the 
 air. It was Lesbia who had to show the way. 
 
 " Don't you see, Mr. Ledward," she said, sinking 
 down beside him, " it's the four gables that must 
 be kept. Particularly the cheeky way they butt- 
 isn't that the word? up against the long back 
 of what is now the front if you understand what 
 I mean. There's the sly little window of the 
 room across the landing, where George used to creep 
 out when he wanted to do Alpine climbing, and 
 didn't break his precious neck. If you come up 
 into the Orchard you can see it winking at the 
 apple-tree." 
 
 Ledward, averting his eyes, as if he were afraid 
 she might imitate the window, said that he under- 
 stood all that 
 
 "Well," said Lesbia, with an impressive hand 
 on his arm, " ' all that/ as you call it, can must 
 be left as it is. We have to do with the ground
 
 THE CATFISH 343 
 
 floor. It's just a matter of knocking three rooms 
 into one the laundry, the storeroom and what 
 used to be the library where George did his lessons 
 and you'll observe that two of them are already 
 flagged ; the very best foundation for a block floor, 
 I should say." 
 
 With a not too steady hand Ledward made a 
 rough sketch while she almost leaned upon him. 
 
 " Yes," she said encouragingly, " you've got 
 the idea. As for the top floor when you've 
 thrown out your jolly central landing, and decided 
 exactly where the staircase is to arrive, the four 
 rooms under the gables will hardly need alteration. 
 Mr. Lindrop shall treat them imaginatively with 
 a view to the temperament of probable guests. 
 The the family bedroom you see, is over the 
 kitchen. It gets the dawn. But we can have a 
 south window as well, to complete your front; 
 and you'll have to knock a doorway through into 
 the little room that used to be Amelia's. That 
 will be George's dressing-room. He can lean out 
 of the window over the porch, poor thing, between 
 the rose and the jasmine, and yearn to Dulcinea." 
 
 So, with interruptions and excursions, they 
 worked it out. The dining-room could remain 
 where it was. Nobody, said Lesbia, wanted sun
 
 344 THE CATFISH 
 
 at meals, except, perhaps, at breakfast. For the 
 matter of that, they could have a little breakfast- 
 room to the right of the porch, with an east window 
 looking into the Yard. The nursery, too, should 
 be where it had been before George desecrated it 
 with his old rubbish. They could let in the sun 
 by making windows in the back wall overlooking 
 the valleys between the gables. 
 
 Truly, George felt, his life was now fronting the 
 sun. He was domesticating his dreams. What in 
 childhood had been a hollow feeling in his stomach 
 was now translated into gladness of heart. Thus 
 the flagged way round the back of the house, though 
 enticing, had always filled him with vague appre- 
 hensions. He perceived now that the reason was 
 that the Orchard was higher, and its hedge flung 
 a green shade. The hedge must come down, and 
 the ground should be terraced up to the level of 
 the tennis-courts. Opposite the welcoming entrance 
 to what was now to be the front of the house there 
 should be steps again broad in the tread and 
 shallow in the rise, because of the way Lesbia 
 moved and flanking the steps there should be 
 many flowers. They would go up, he and she, 
 with their children about them; and the difference 
 between the way they would go, and the way he
 
 THE CATFISH 345 
 
 had nipped up the Orchard steps as a child, was the 
 difference between advancing upon joy with open 
 arms in the eye of the sun and darting into it with 
 the sense of playing truant from life. 
 
 Beyond the tennis-courts the Orchard, except for 
 judicious renewal, should remain as it was. They 
 would go, following the Bourne, to the deep and 
 rich activities of Gardiner's field and look toward 
 Tracy's, where those activities found their final ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Not the least part of his happiness was in the 
 sense of living with the Bourne. Remembering 
 his dream on his first night in London how he 
 tried to twist the needle of his compass round 
 against the current of the Bourne he was half 
 inclined to believe that some of the perplexities of 
 his childhood had been due to the fact that he 
 was facing up-stream. He remembered his impres- 
 sion of the front of the house; it cowered against 
 an influence. With the house turned round back 
 to front, his life and the Bourne would flow in the 
 same direction. Whether or not there was any- 
 thing in it, the fancy amused him. He was right 
 with the Bourne. 
 
 Then an idea came to him that gave him childish 
 pleasure. He intended to have electric light.
 
 346 THE CATFISH 
 
 With Ledward he had already discussed the 
 question of motive power: an engine driven by 
 hydraulic pressure from the water-main, such as 
 was used for blowing the organ up at the church, 
 or a windmill, such as he already used for the 
 irrigation of Gardiner's field. Suddenly he 
 thought of the Waterfall. He would harness 
 " Old Growler." Quite apart from the practical 
 advantages it would not only drive his dynamo, 
 but supersede the windmill in Gardiner's field, 
 which had never been quite satisfactory there 
 was an imaginative pleasure in the idea that the 
 Waterfall which had disturbed his childhood 
 should now light his home. He was domesticating 
 not only his dreams, but the very source of them, 
 and the slight sense of daring only added to the 
 fun of the thing. It was almost profane, he 
 thought, as he watched the water coming down 
 straight with its transient quiver like the shaking 
 of spears. Perhaps when he had harnessed " Old 
 Growler " he would finally lay that unfulfilled part 
 of him which had so unaccountably awakened upon 
 the tawny plain of Old Castile. 
 
 Before the end of the year the work was finished ; 
 the house was remade in the image of their love, 
 yet not so altered as to banish the associations of
 
 THE CATFISH 347 
 
 his childhood. His dreams had mellowed in her 
 warm humanity. Like the body of a violin, the 
 house rang true to the vibrations of a sane and 
 joyous life. Together they would see his queer 
 fancies about the house repeated more sunnily in 
 their children. Instead of an unexplained attic, 
 where Things romped in the night, there should 
 be a secret chamber, filled with their common- 
 memories of the house's renewal, to baffle the lit- 
 tle brains and perplex the little measuring hands 
 and clambering feet. Love should lurk on the 
 stairs and confidence ripen like wine in the cellar. 
 Instead of in the sound of "Doom! " the meaning 
 of the Waterfall should be expressed in the friendly 
 glow of a light that little fingers could control at 
 will. 
 
 With every day he was more convinced of the 
 success of his marriage. Nothing pleased him 
 more than the sort of interest that Lesbia took 
 in his affairs; she was not anxious to be consulted, 
 but she was never bored, and every now and then 
 she would make a suggestion, always wise and 
 human, which showed that she followed sym- 
 pathetically what was in his mind. In her appar- 
 ently idle, unobtrusive way she learned all about 
 what was being done in Gardiner's field, and it
 
 348 THE CATFISH 
 
 was often to her that Andrews came for directions. 
 She seemed to have the knack of interpreting 
 George's ideas before he had reasoned them out. 
 Under her, even during the muddle of reconstruc- 
 tion, the house ran smoothly, though she never 
 seemed to be busying herself about household af- 
 fairs. Fussiness and irritation could not survive 
 in her presence. 
 
 At Tracy's she was adored. Without inter- 
 fering in any department she took in everything 
 with a quiet eye and never forgot a name. 
 Through her the good-fellowship that there had 
 always been between George and the staff became 
 something like family affection. Observing that 
 the tennis-court at Bourneside was being wasted, 
 she got the young men and women out to play on 
 Saturday afternoons, and when the weather failed 
 she started a Glee Gub. 
 
 Apart from the care of the house, her only 
 personal occupation was music. It seemed to be 
 a gift for which she was not intellectually re- 
 sponsible. George declared that she " read " with 
 her ringers alone, and often she could not remember 
 the name of the composer she happened to be play- 
 ing. It was all just music to her. When she 
 sang, or rather crooned, she always closed her
 
 THE CATFISH 349 
 
 eyes, lifting her head like an animal bemused. It 
 was a long time before George felt perfectly con- 
 vinced that there was not a trace of black blood in 
 her. Oddly enough, it would have appealed to him 
 as an attraction; as if she summed up the women 
 of all races. 
 
 Without making any apparent effort to entertain, 
 she quickly became a hostess. It was this that 
 impressed George's relations, who, though they had 
 given his wife a proper welcome, were a little un- 
 certain whether they ought to approve such haste 
 in wedding. Like Mr. Garnett, they wanted 
 precedent. George was well satisfied, because he 
 saw that their instinctive liking outran their judg- 
 ment; each member of the quartet was a little 
 more friendly than he or she allowed the others to 
 see ; with an effect of intrigue that was very amus- 
 ing to witness, particularly when it came out that 
 both Mrs. Walter and Amelia had privately en- 
 gaged Lesbia as godmother to their respective 
 hopes. Lesbia blinked in her cat-like way, betrayed 
 no secrets, and showed no favor. 
 
 " She just lies about and people come to her," 
 said Amelia, and Walter summed up the situation 
 by saying to George with good-humored envy: 
 
 "The fact of the matter is, old chap, you got
 
 350 THE CATFISH 
 
 Bourneside under false pretenses. Who'd have 
 thought that the dear old place was going to wake 
 up like this?" 
 
 George could not deny that he enjoyed the pop- 
 ularity of his house. With happiness and success 
 his social instincts were developing. He liked to 
 have people about him so long as he did not have 
 to bother about tiresome divisions of class, and 
 Lesbia seemed to have the gift of making people 
 forget them, so that Bourneside promised to be- 
 come a little center of enlightenment. 
 
 As is often the case with delicate children, George 
 had grown into a strong man. At thirty he was 
 in the full enjoyment of all his powers. Following 
 the suggestion of Lesbia's remark on their first 
 meeting, he had grown a beard, so that he now 
 resembled a more active edition of his father who 
 was still his hero. He dressed in rough clothes, 
 rolled a little in his walk, and swung his arms. 
 People who did not like him said that he swag- 
 gered. That was not true, but he unconsciously 
 dramatized his enjoyment of health, happiness and 
 success. He saw pictures of the future, and lived 
 up to them. 
 
 One picture that often came into his mind was 
 a subject for a modern Rubens. He saw himself
 
 THE CATFISH 351 
 
 and Lesbia with their children on an autumn even- 
 ing in the Court in front of the house. Lesbia 
 should be on his knee with grapes in her lap. He 
 would have one arm about her, and in the other 
 hand he would hold a goblet of golden wine. Five 
 or six children would be grouped about them with 
 books or fruit in their hands, and perhaps there 
 would be a messenger just arrived with important 
 papers. 
 
 Exactly why this picture should have presented 
 itself he could not have said, but he saw it vividly, 
 and was determined that one day it should be 
 painted. He doubted if Darragh would be the 
 painter; Darragh, with all his gifts, would not be 
 able to suggest the right atmosphere of health, 
 good living, prosperity and family affection. 
 
 At the beginning of the year, when the first nov- 
 elty of the house had worn off, he took Lesbia up 
 to London. When at Mrs. Glanville's they met 
 Mary Festing, he wondered that he could ever have 
 imagined himself to be in love with anybody so far 
 from his present ideal of the perfect woman. He 
 perceived how true had been Doctor Raymond's 
 description of her; she was of the vestal type, a 
 natural celibate. All her emotions went into her 
 work though even there they were, to George's
 
 352 THE CATFISH 
 
 mind, a little thin. As the critics said, her novels, 
 though clever and poetical, were lacking in warm 
 humanity. 
 
 The meeting between the two women interested 
 him. Lesbia kissed Mary impulsively and said: 
 " You knew George when he was a boy." Mary 
 laughed and said : " Yes, we fought even then." 
 Mary's manner irritated him a little. He thought 
 her pa-tronizing and superior as if in her heart 
 she despised domestic joy. He wished that she 
 were not slightly the taller of the two. She held 
 Lesbia's hands and looked down at her with grave 
 eyes that were yet a little amused. Lesbia, on the 
 other hand, was inclined to make too much of 
 Mary for his liking. After all, she was the mar- 
 ried woman. It gave him satisfaction, of which he 
 was immediately ashamed, to observe that Mary 
 was rather shabbily dressed. 
 
 Mary, when he found himself talking to her, 
 made him feel aggressive. She was the only per- 
 son he knew to whom he wanted to swagger. With 
 a little provocation, he would have boasted to her 
 about the success of Tracy's. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, a subject came up which saved him from this 
 egregiousness. It was the time of the South Afri- 
 can War, and a remark of Mary's told him that
 
 ,THE CATFISH 353 
 
 she was a strong Pro-Boer. George himself had 
 by no means made up his mind about the subject; 
 he felt that the war was a mistake, and he instinct- 
 ively distrusted the people in whose interests it had 
 been begun; but Mary's remark aroused all his 
 patriotism. 
 
 " I suppose Darragh has talked you over," he 
 said. 
 
 Mary admitted that Darragh agreed with her, 
 but claimed her own sympathies. 
 
 " I'm always on the side of the little people," 
 she said. 
 
 Until then it had not occurred to him that they 
 were talking about the same subject as at their 
 first meeting. It must have come to her at the 
 same moment, for she flushed deeply and plucked 
 at her dress. Somehow it made him angry that she 
 should remember, but he laughed, and said, " Yes, 
 I know," as if to imply that the memory was not 
 embarrassing to him. Then Lesbia came over and 
 said: "What are you two sparring about? " 
 
 " They always do," said Mrs. Glanville, and 
 Mary laughed, and George felt that " sparring " 
 would do well enough to describe their relations. 
 He perceived that he had yet to have it out with 
 Mary Festing.
 
 354 THE CATFISH 
 
 When they were leaving, Lesbia pressed Mary to 
 come down to Bourneside. 
 
 " You can have George's old room at the top of 
 the house to write in," she said; and then, with 
 pleased recollection, "but of course you will re- 
 membei it the room that used to be the nursery. 
 It has six windows now." 
 
 " How extravagant ! " said Mary, making great 
 eyes at her, as one might at a child. She did not 
 seem at all keen to accept the invitation, and George 
 wished that Lesbia would not be so pressing. In 
 the hansom he said something of the sort, and 
 Lesbia said quickly : 
 
 " You don't mind, do you ? " 
 
 It was the first time she had asked him such a 
 question, and it touched him strangely. 
 
 " Of course not, you goose," he said, pressing 
 her hand, " not if you like her." 
 
 " I like her extraordinarily," said Lesbia in a 
 reflective tone, as if surprised at her own feelings; 
 and then added, " and I want her to like me." 
 
 " Oh, Mary is quite a good sort," he said indul- 
 gently, " but she's too intellectual. All there is of 
 her goes into her books." 
 
 ' That's only because she wants petting and feed- 
 ing up," said Lesbia, " and I believe that if you
 
 THE CATFISH 355 
 
 really took the trouble to get below the surface 
 you'd find her interesting as a woman." Then she 
 laughed mischievously and went on : " Besides, 
 she will be good for you for the central George. 
 I know you better than you do yourself. There's 
 a little poet in you that mustn't be let die of con- 
 tentment." 
 
 It was all so innocently said that George could only 
 give proofs of his contentment. " The poet that 
 could not survive you is not worth rearing," he 
 aid. But when he helped her out of the hansom 
 at the door of their hotel he had the strange thought 
 that Lesbia must be protected against the influence 
 of Mary Festing. 
 
 Lesbia, who was extremely anxious to make the 
 acquaintance of all his friends, asked him to take 
 her to Darragh's studio. Feeling that he had 
 rather neglected Darragh of late years, he gladly 
 seized the opportunity, and in this case the intro- 
 duction was a triumphant success. Darragh showed 
 his admiration of Lesbia in every glance. She, 
 frankly ignorant of painting, was interested in ev- 
 erything she saw, but most in Darragh, and George 
 had the remorseful feeling that she was wondering 
 why he had not made more of the friendship. 
 There was no reason why he hadn't, except the
 
 356 THE CATFISH 
 
 feeling that Darragh had grown out of sympathy 
 with him. He reflected that there were things in 
 his friendship with Darragh, as with Mary, that 
 he couldn't explain even to himself. But it would 
 be easier now. That was the joy of Lesbia; she 
 made all human relations easier. 
 
 Looking round the poorly furnished studio, he 
 was at first inclined to think that Darragh's paint- 
 ing had not improved. He had changed his style. 
 George had a keen appreciation of pictures, but his 
 technical knowledge did not enable him to judge 
 of more than good color and correct drawing. He 
 had nothing to find fault with in Darragh's pic- 
 tures romantic landscapes with figures, and an 
 unfinished portrait or two in these respects, but 
 they looked to him curiously flat, and the shapes 
 of things seemed to have been wilfully altered. 
 He tried to explain what he felt about them, and 
 Darragh said modestly : 
 
 " I'm experimenting. It seems to me that things 
 must be made to mean more, and I don't think you 
 can do it by making them look more real. But if 
 they don't come off with you, it shows that I haven't 
 succeeded in getting the form right. It will come 
 presently at least I believe I'm on the right tack." 
 
 At the time George did not quite understand what
 
 THE CATFISH 357 
 
 he meant, and it was clear from Darragh 's casual 
 remarks that his present work was even less pop- 
 ular than his more realistic painting had been. But 
 when George and Lesbia had left the studio, after 
 asking Darragh to dine with them at their hotel, 
 he found that the pictures he had seen did come 
 off with him in a curious way. They seemed to 
 get down to a deeper layer of him than pictures 
 generally did. He resented the effect a little, as 
 if he were being made to confess his more intimate 
 feelings about nature, but while he was trying to 
 discover what it meant, Lesbia switched him off 
 by saying: " I wonder if Mr. Darragh and Mary 
 Festing will ever marry." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think so," he said, feeling slightly 
 shocked. 
 
 "They are great friends, aren't they?" said 
 Lesbia. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " but somehow one does not 
 think of Mary as a marrying person." 
 
 Lesbia laughed and said : " Not indiscriminately, 
 you Turk. Some women will marry anybody," she 
 went on, pinching his arm, " and some are more 
 exacting." 
 
 " That's only a ribald way of saying the same 
 thing," he said. " Mary is a cold person." He
 
 358 THE CATFISH 
 
 was half inclined to quote Doctor Raymond, but 
 somehow it seemed feeble to do so. 
 
 " ' Cold hands and a warm heart/ " quoted Les- 
 bia, as they paced along arm in arm. " Anyhow," 
 she added, " if Mary fell in love I believe she would 
 be absolutely reckless." 
 
 That made him laugh, and he said: 
 
 " Well, they're a long time exploding, and I 
 don't think the delay is Darragh's." 
 
 " But she might marry him in the end to make 
 him happy, stupid," said Lesbia. 
 
 At the time he put it down to the match-making 
 instinct of the happy wife. Nor when Darragh 
 came to dinner, though he talked about Mary, did 
 he say anything to suggest that there was any 
 change in the brother-and-sisterly relations between 
 them. By this time, George's thoughts about Dar- 
 ragh's pictures had taken a practical turn. With 
 some diffidence, he asked him if he would do a 
 poster for "Tracy's." 
 
 " I can't get just what I want," he said. " Old 
 IJndrop makes a very pretty picture, but when you 
 get across the road it all goes into a mush. And 
 the other fellows don't seem to have any idea be- 
 yond putting the actual thing on the hoardings. 
 But your work seems to stick in the mind quite
 
 THE CATFISH 359 
 
 apart from what it represents. I think the outline 
 has something to do with it. However, if you 
 don't think it's coming down " 
 
 " On the contrary," said Darragh, " it's a great 
 compliment. That's exactly what I'm trying to 
 do. To get there without people knowing. Of 
 course, the thing must be treated differently to 
 carry across the road instead of only across a small 
 room, but it's the same principle. We've got to 
 cure people of their intelligence before there's any 
 chance for painting in this country." 
 
 The subject led them into an eager discussion, 
 and, altogether, George felt that he was nearer to 
 Darragh than he had been for some time. He put 
 it down to Lesbia; she seemed to absorb everything 
 in his nature that he had ever found embarrassing. 
 When he was leaving, Darragh shyly expressed to 
 George his admiration of Lesbia. He found the 
 right word for her : " Giorgionesque." He would 
 like to paint her in an autumnal landscape.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 EARLY in June Lesbia gave birth to a daugh- 
 ter. It was at once evident that she was a 
 born mother. She nursed the child herself, and 
 behaved to it with that brooding animal fondness 
 which is so much more significant than sentimental 
 raptures. George was delighted. He wished to 
 have many children ; all his ideas ran in the direction 
 of productiveness. But when Mary Festing came 
 down in September George felt absurdly shy at 
 meeting her in the presence of the child. He knew 
 that she liked children, but his conception of her 
 character led him to suppose that she must despise 
 the human weakness implied in their origin. If she 
 did she concealed the fact, and babbled over the 
 baby as foolishly as any girl, though George was 
 persuaded that her attitude to him was now subtly 
 humorous. This kept him a little on the self-as- 
 sertive side, as if he had to prove that he and his 
 affairs were really important. But that was only 
 when they happened to be alone together. In pub- 
 
 360
 
 THE CATFISH 361 
 
 lie she seemed to acquiesce in the convention that 
 they were always sparring. 
 
 The affection between her and Lesbia was too 
 real to be questioned. Neither was demonstrative, 
 but they seemed to fit into each other with the 
 quiet assurance of complementary parts. When 
 Mary was not working they spent most of their 
 time in the Orchard with the baby between them. 
 They might have been the contrasted guardians 
 of infancy in an allegorical picture. Coming upon 
 them, the black head and the tawny bent over the 
 merely fluffy one, George was inclined to say, 
 " Soul and body " though he would not admit 
 the full antithesis for what it implied. Lesbia had 
 soul enough for him. She was Aphrodite Pande- 
 mos, " mother and lover of men " ; Mary was 
 but even Artemis had stooped divinely. No; she 
 was Pallas Athene by virtue of her trade. Physic- 
 ally, she did stoop divinely, but that was a mere 
 trick. The habit of her trade or possibly some- 
 body, Darragh, for example, had told her that it 
 gave concentration to her eyes and set off the 
 nape of her neck. Even these coldly intellectual 
 women were not above such vanities. He was 
 quite ready to elaborate a theory that they were 
 the real wantons of their sex. They had nothing
 
 362 THE CATFISH 
 
 to give, and yet they claimed attention to their 
 bodily charms. Poor old Darragh! In homely 
 language, she ought to be smacked. 
 
 Although he was not in the least jealous of 
 Lesbia's affection for Mary, its results occasionally 
 irritated him. He was not " left out of it " -but 
 rather the reverse. On his approach to the group 
 the two women would open out to enclose him as 
 if, he said to himself, Mary were a complementary 
 part of his domestic bliss. He felt inclined to say 
 to Lesbia, " She's your friend, not mine." By this 
 time Lesbia had got over her exaggerated respect 
 for Mary, though she still treated her as a moral 
 superior. Not, however, with envy, but in a lazy 
 humorous way; a Sancho Panza way, as to a 
 person too bright and good for anything. 
 
 Sometimes he caught himself wishing that a sit- 
 uation would arise in which he and Mary would be 
 pulling Lesbia opposite ways. Then he and Mary 
 could have it out at last. He knew that there were 
 quite a lot of things he had saved up to get off to 
 her, though, in cold blood, and without reasonable 
 provocation, he could not say what they were. 
 Apart from the satisfaction of having it out, he 
 would like to see her flash out again as she had 
 flashed out in the nursery at their first meeting. On
 
 THE CATFISH 363 
 
 the rare occasions when he visited her in the room 
 that had been the nursery, now, he talked to her 
 rather stiffly about the views from the windows. It 
 seemed a matter of principle not to be interested in 
 her work that lay upon his desk. When Lesbia, 
 enfolding them both in her warm slow smile, said 
 luxuriously, " What a rich atmosphere Barbara will 
 enjoy when she is big enough to play here your 
 childhood, and Mary's romances," he said, in a 
 boyishly aggressive tone, " Well, at any rate, they 
 won't mix"; and Mary laughed out as he had 
 never heard her laugh before. Lesbia came down 
 on his shoulder with, " You darling ! " and for once 
 he received the soft weight of her unresponsively, 
 and said something about the over-subtlety of fem- 
 inine humor. 
 
 With the best will in the world he could not 
 continue to call Mary superior to his affairs. She 
 made friends with Andrews, who said that she was 
 " a very intelligent woman," and she took a healthy 
 interest in Tracy's. Lindrop's efforts to hit the 
 right note of sentimental regret with her without 
 prejudice to his present admirers were amusing; 
 though mingled with his amusement George had 
 the sheepish recollection that once upon a time he 
 had been concerned to know the exact relations
 
 364 THE CATFISH 
 
 between Mary and Lindrop. He observed that Kate 
 Flanders, though she evidently disapproved of 
 Mary's clothes, regarded her with special interest. 
 Kate had an unerring eye for problems of tempera- 
 ment. Lindrop was with them when George took 
 Mary into Kate's department, and while they were 
 talking Kate rolled a speculative eye from Mary 
 to Lindrop, and then smiled compassionately, as 
 if to say : " No, you're not the explanation, my 
 good man." George would have liked to know 
 what Kate thought of Mary. What made it all 
 the more tantalizing was that when they came out 
 Mary wanted to know all about Kate. She had 
 heard Mrs. Glanville speak of her. George told 
 her how loyally Kate had backed him up, how loy- 
 ally everybody had backed him up, in fact, and Mary 
 said : " After all, people are human, you see." 
 He could never be quite sure that she was not 
 laughing at him. 
 
 If she had any reserve about Tracy's, it was 
 clearly not on account of what things were being 
 done there. It was only his doing them that she 
 seemed to find vaguely unsatisfactory. Not because 
 they were unimportant in themselves, but either 
 because they did not go far enough or were done 
 with a wrong motive. She left him with the uneasy
 
 THE CATFISH 365 
 
 inclination to ask her : " Well, what do you 
 want?" 
 
 Unlike Lesbia, Mary was a good walker, and 
 Lesbia was relentless in making George take her 
 out. He was not in the least unwilling to do so, 
 but for the implication that Lesbia saw in Mary 
 something that she herself could not supply. If 
 he wanted exercise, he was in no particular need 
 of a companion. Nor did he believe that Mary 
 really wanted him. Lesbia had a superstition that 
 they were " good for " each other. " Now, Mary," 
 she would say, " take him out and make him 
 talk." 
 
 In the result the walks were pleasant enough. 
 He was surprised to find how well Mary knew his 
 country, though in the month or so that she had 
 spent with the Markhams as a little girl she could 
 not have made many excursions. Her knowledge 
 was not so much topographical as atmospheric; 
 she seemed to know what places " meant " for him. 
 His own references to his childhood were curt and 
 dry, conveyed in a grunt or a gesture as they swung 
 through a lane or halted on a hill-top; and it was 
 more often she than he who recalled them. Occa- 
 sionally she remembered things he had forgotten. 
 He concluded that Darragh had talked to her.
 
 366 THE CATFISH 
 
 He did not take her to the Grove. He resented 
 the feeling that kept him from doing so, but it 
 had to be obeyed. Though he did not think it 
 likely, he sometimes wondered if Lesbia had told 
 her about Mrs. Lorimer. The only way in which 
 Mrs. Lorimer bothered him now was in the re- 
 flection that while she had seemed an obstacle to 
 Mary, when he imagined himself to be in love with 
 her, she had not seemed an obstacle to Lesbia. In 
 reason, there was a quite satisfactory explanation 
 in Lesbia's human sympathy; but something be- 
 yond reason left him dissatisfied. There were 
 moments when he had the tantalizing thought that 
 it was not Mary herself, but some undefined rela- 
 tion between him and her, that was hurt by Mrs. 
 Lorimer, but he could not work it out satisfactorily. 
 Anyhow, as he admitted to himself, the practical 
 result was that he could not take Mary into the 
 Grove. 
 
 On their walks he generally found himself the 
 active talker partly from the desire to keep the 
 conversation away from the associations of his 
 childhood. It was a matter of real concern to him 
 that both Mary and Darragh seemed very badly 
 off. From the nature of their work he supposed 
 that neither could expect any great popularity, but
 
 THE CATFISH 367 
 
 he was inclined to believe that they did not get 
 the most out of what commercial opportunities they 
 respectively had. The results of his own investi- 
 gations into the problems of shopkeeping led him 
 to assume that the distribution of books and pic- 
 tures was not any better managed than that of 
 anything else. In the case of books he had proved 
 it so far as it could be proved in a provincial 
 town. But when he talked to Mary about the 
 subject she seemed contented with her small circu- 
 lation. She admitted that there were stupidities, 
 that the success of a novel was artificially limited 
 by the pathetic reliance of possible readers on the 
 ordinary channels of distribution, but she said : 
 
 " After all, the only success worth having is the 
 success you can't help." 
 
 It sounded like a cry out of his boyhood, and 
 called up a vivid picture of his interview with the 
 Head of St. Piran's. For a moment he was dis- 
 concerted. He had the obscure feeling that it 
 somehow tampered with the foundations of 
 Tracy's, but he said to himself that he could 
 reconcile that, and went on, impatiently: 
 
 " Yes, but you can at least meet it half-way." 
 
 " If you can meet it with the whole of yourself," 
 she said rather breathlessly. He felt sure that she
 
 368 THE CATFISH 
 
 was thinking of him rather than herself, and he 
 was tempted to say : " Do you mean that I'm not 
 getting the whole of myself into Tracy's? "but 
 shirked it and said: "Ah, you're incorruptible." 
 
 They walked in silence for a few steps, and 
 then she said: 
 
 " By the way, I've never thanked you for the 
 way you've boomed me down here." 
 
 " Oh, that's Blaker he's one of your fervents," 
 he said. 
 
 " Ah, you're uncompromising," she said with a 
 faint mimicry of his last remark but one. 
 
 He laughed, though he did not quite see what she 
 was driving at, and went on : " No, but seriously, 
 without conceding anything, it is possible to put, 
 or to see that other people put, your work out to 
 the best advantage." He spoke of Darragh's re- 
 fusal to send to the Academy and his indifference 
 to introductions that might lead to commissions for 
 portraits. In the case of Darragh, Mary was will- 
 ing to admit a neglect of opportunities. 
 
 " But he's absolutely unworldly," she said ; " so 
 it really amounts to the same thing. He wouldn't 
 be completely himself if he hustled round." 
 
 The frankness with which she spoke of DarragH 
 convinced George that there was nothing in Lesbia's
 
 THE CATFISH 369 
 
 match-making speculations. There was no reason 
 why Mary should hesitate to tell him if she and 
 Darragh had any idea of getting married. Besides, 
 so far as her being a helpmate to Darragh was 
 concerned, it evidently wasn't necessary; her re- 
 marks showed the most intimate knowledge of his 
 affairs. She went on to say that Darragh was now 
 engaged upon some decorations for a schoolroom 
 in the south of London. It was a commission that 
 brought him little more than the cost of materials, 
 but he had put more profitable work aside to carry 
 it out. 
 
 That gave George an idea or rather two. 
 The first was that he might be able to get Darragh 
 commissions for decorative panels in some of Lin- 
 drop's " interiors," Lindrop having now recognized 
 that he could not paint up to the level of his de- 
 signs; and the second was that possibly Mary's 
 vague dissatisfaction with Tracy's was due to 
 its having no sociological purpose. 
 
 He had observed that both Mary and Darragh 
 were interested in " betterment " schemes. The in- 
 terest, indeed, was reflected in her novels, and he 
 had chaffed her about the risks of writing with a 
 purpose. Her defense was that she didn't; but 
 merely said what she felt about things. Apart
 
 370 THE CATFISH 
 
 from that, she and Darragh were in the habit of 
 East End-ing, as he called it. They lent a hand 
 in settlement work, and had many friends among 
 the labor people. George himself being unsympa- 
 thetic, he only heard of their doings by casual allu- 
 sions, and he had supposed that they represented 
 not more than the vague socialistic aspirations of 
 the artistic mind. In passing, he had noted as a 
 paradox that Mary's temperamental coldness did 
 not make her shrink from contact with the sort of 
 people who might be described as publicans and 
 sinners. 
 
 Now he began to wonder if what Mary missed 
 in him were the social conscience. He rather hoped 
 it was, because he felt that he could give a good 
 account of himself in that respect. Like his father, 
 he had a strong dislike of anything theoretical. 
 He had got a little farther than sitting tight upon 
 the land as a panacea, but he still believed that 
 the best way to improve social conditions was for 
 everybody to mind his own business. He did not 
 set out to be a social reformer, but his notion of 
 such was the enlightened despot. Cooperation 
 might be encouraged, and he could show that 
 Tracy's encouraged it not only in agriculture, 
 but by providing a market for village industries.
 
 THE CATFISH 371 
 
 In one or two cases it had revived them. Nor was 
 he averse from the principle of profit-sharing; each 
 of his employees had an interest in the concern. 
 Moreover, though he would have disclaimed the 
 wish to pose as a public benefactor, he had certain 
 schemes in mind for the improvement of his native 
 city. At present he had not enough capital to carry 
 any one of them through unaided, and he preferred 
 to wait until he had. Not from the wish to glorify 
 himself, but because he believed that the best way 
 to get anything done was to do it and, if necessary, 
 ask for support afterward. 
 
 The idea that Mary was finding fault with him 
 on sociological grounds amused him. He would 
 welcome an opportunity to have a slap at the doc- 
 trinaires. He did not say anything at the moment, 
 but during the rest of her visit he trailed his coat 
 a little in that direction. Mary refused to be drawn 
 into a personal attack, though her general remarks 
 confirmed his belief that she did think him lacking 
 in public spirit. He would hardly have admitted 
 that her implied criticism had any practical effect 
 upon him, but he found himself paying more par- 
 ticular attention than before to the way Tracy's 
 worked out in relation to the community in general. 
 He was half-consciously making out his case
 
 372 THE CATFISH 
 
 perhaps the first stage in the awakening of the social 
 conscience. 
 
 One evening in December when he came home 
 rather tired and grumpy from Tracy's, Lesbia 
 greeted him with: " What did I tell you? Miles 
 and Mary are married." 
 
 He was unreasonably irritated. The first thought 
 that came into his head was that Lesbia had been 
 in their secret, but her shining face dismissed it, 
 and as he took the letter from her hand, he said : 
 
 " Well, they might have told us." 
 
 " But aren't you glad? " said Lesbia, shaking his 
 arm. 
 
 "Of course, I'm delighted," he said; "but it 
 would have been more friendly of them to have 
 taken us into their confidence." 
 
 " Oh, I can understand it perfectly," said Lesbia. 
 " I'm not a bit surprised. They didn't want any 
 fuss made, and they must have known that to 
 people who knew them well it would seem rather 
 well, rather pedestrian. Miles is not like you, 
 you savage. I can quite understand their being 
 shy about it. They wanted to get it over first. 
 Besides, we're the first people they've told except 
 his mother."
 
 THE CATFISH 373 
 
 Mary's letter to Lesbia was affectionate but quite 
 unapologetic. They were married a fortnight ago 
 at the registrar's and were now just back from 
 Paris. For the present they intended to live in 
 Mary's rooms. 
 
 There was nothing that any reasonable person 
 could wonder at, and with Lesbia simmering at 
 his elbow, George had to make worldly-wise remarks 
 to conceal his repugnance. 
 
 " Didn't Mary give you any hint when she was 
 here ? " he said, as he folded up the letter. 
 
 " Not a word," said Lesbia, " though, of course, 
 I had my own ideas." 
 
 " I believe you put it into her head," he said 
 rather fatuously. 
 
 " I dare say we encouraged her," said Lesbia, 
 with a comfortable little laugh. Then rubbing her 
 cheek against his arm, she went on : " Oh, George, 
 don't you understand? Mary is not a very young 
 woman, and why shouldn't she have a little joy 
 of her life? She knew that Miles was in love with 
 her." 
 
 " But that's an old story," he said. 
 " I must say I don't quite understand why she 
 kept him waiting," Lesbia admitted. " My own
 
 374 THE CATFISH 
 
 idea," she went on after a pause, " is that Mary 
 had some affair." 
 
 " Did she say so? " he said quickly. 
 
 " Not she," said Lesbia with scorn. " I once 
 asked her if she had ever had a lover, and she 
 laughed and opened her eyes you know the way 
 she does when she wants to put you off and said : 
 ' He wouldn't have me, my che-ild.' But she kissed 
 me directly afterward," she added reflectively. 
 
 " Well, it's astonishing," he said. 
 
 Lesbia looked at him rather compassionately. 
 
 " You know, George," she said, " I can't help 
 thinking that you somehow got a wrong idea about 
 Mary. You put her on a sort of pedestal that she 
 wouldn't in the least lay claim to. I believe she 
 feels it a little. After all, women are not very dif- 
 ferent from men, only they're not so frank about 
 it. Of course, men haven't the same opportunities 
 of finding out, but I've never heard Mary say any- 
 thing that would lead me to suppose that she was 
 cold. I think you do her an injustice." 
 
 There was not an atom of reproach in it on her 
 own account, but it made him feel that his notion 
 of Mary was an injustice to Lesbia, and he kissed 
 her remorsefully, saying:
 
 THE CATFISH 375 
 
 " I suppose I have got into the way of thinking 
 her a bit of a prig." 
 
 He wanted to get away and think it over. It 
 was not so much the event as his own feelings 
 about it that disturbed him. Until now he had not 
 fully recognized how much Doctor Raymond's re- 
 mark had weighed in his conception of Mary. He 
 felt as if he had been cheated. That transferred 
 his anger from Doctor Raymond to himself, and 
 he said that it was all nonsense; that the truth of 
 the matter was that his ideas of order had been up- 
 set. The disturbance was purely intellectual. He 
 had thought of a woman in one way, and now he 
 must think of her in another way, and the jolt was 
 naturally disconcerting. The result was to make 
 him unusually tender to Lesbia, as if to prove that 
 they were the people who really understood, and 
 they wrote a joint letter to the Darraghs, upbraid- 
 ing them for their secretiveness, but congratulating 
 them on their conversation to common-sense.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN five years Lesbia had borne him three chil- 
 dren, with only a deepening of wisdom in her 
 amber eyes to betray the cares of motherhood. She 
 was mistress and wife in one, sleepily passionate and 
 splendidly sane. His life with her continued to be 
 a golden dream come true. If there were times 
 when he was conscious of an unfulfilled part of 
 himself that walked alone in a far place, he put it 
 down to a defect of temperament, and turned to 
 her arms to be made whole again. 
 
 George soon got used to the idea of Darragh's 
 marriage, and he found that it put their friendship 
 on a more comfortable footing than before. He 
 had long looked upon Darragh and Mary as natural 
 allies in a way of thinking that was different from 
 and, to a certain extent, tacitly critical of his own. 
 They stood for plain living and high thinking, the 
 cult of the "little people." He had enough sym- 
 pathy with their point of view to make encounters 
 amusing, and Lesbia was an admirable audience. 
 She, as she said, " held their coats." 
 
 376
 
 THE CATFISH 377 
 
 The first time George met the Darraghs after 
 their marriage he was struck by Mary's protective 
 attitude to her husband. She had always kept a 
 sisterly eye upon his worldly affairs, but now she 
 was, at any rate to George, a little defiant. The 
 impression he got was that she thought of him in 
 relation to Darragh very much as he had once 
 thought of her in relation to Lesbia though he 
 could not find a reason in either case. Certainly 
 his feelings with regard to Darragh were never 
 anything but affectionate, and he concluded that 
 Mary was afraid that he would try to tempt her 
 husband away from the paths of artistic rectitude. 
 He had no such intention, though he took every 
 opportunity to put attractive work in Darragh's 
 way. 
 
 The Darraghs often came down to Bourneside, 
 and one summer the Tracys spent a holiday with 
 them in Cornwall, where George was glad to renew 
 his acquaintance with Miles' mother, whom he had 
 only seen at rare intervals since the days of St. 
 Piran's. He liked her as much as ever, though 
 to him her manner was now slightly nervous and 
 apologetic. It made him feel that he had drifted 
 away from the atmosphere in which she had formed 
 her ideas about him. Since Miles and Mary re-
 
 378 THE CATFISH 
 
 mained in it, he supposed her disappointment in 
 him to be only natural. 
 
 Friendly as they were, he could never quite get 
 rid of the feeling that the Darraghs thought he 
 had become a rather vulgarly successful person. 
 This only amused him, as did also Mary's critical 
 regard for his treatment of Lesbia. Evidently she 
 thought him a masterful husband. He put this 
 down to feministic learnings, of which Lesbia was 
 innocent. He said to himself that Mary did not 
 understand boon- fellowship between husband and 
 wife, and he was always half hoping that she would 
 say or do something to enable him to have it out 
 with her. They still sparred. Her actual com- 
 ments were never more than humorous. One 
 afternoon when he joined the three as they sat 
 in their favorite place in the Court, and greeted 
 Lesbia rather boisterously, Mary spoke of his 
 " Buss me, Kate " manner. Darragh seized upon 
 the phrase with delight, and made a drawing of 
 George as Bluff King Hal. But many people were 
 inclined to think him exuberant. Tom Burchell, 
 for example, who had succeeded Doctor Fleetwood, 
 asserted that George was an early G. P. He would 
 solemnly tap his knees, compare his pupils, and 
 make him repeat compromising polysyllables.
 
 THE CATFISH 379 
 
 As yet the Darraghs had no children, not, ap- 
 parently, to their serious disappointment. They 
 were poor, they moved about a great deal, and all 
 their habits were undomestic. But Mary was de- 
 voted to George's eldest little girl, Barbara. When 
 she was at Bourneside the two were inseparable 
 and Lesbia declared that she would leave the child's 
 moral education to Mary. This, though humor- 
 ously said, caused George some slight irritation. 
 Lesbia, though charmingly indolent, was not lazy 
 or neglectful, but in the presence of Mary she af- 
 fected an exaggerated hedonism as if conscious 
 of overwhelming competition in opposite virtues. 
 Sometimes George wondered if his old quarrel with 
 Mary was going to be fought out over Barbara. 
 
 Meanwhile his worldly affairs had prospered. 
 Tracy's had sent out branches into all the prin- 
 cipal towns in the Western counties, and its im- 
 portance as a commercial organization was now 
 recognized to be a definite factor in local politics. 
 Any speculative proposal for the benefit of trade 
 or agriculture had to pass the standard of 
 Tracy's. It compelled the mere financier to 
 show something more solid than a promising pros- 
 pectus, while, on the other hand, it anticipated the 
 benefits to be derived from combinations among
 
 38o THE CATFISH 
 
 actual producers. With a fair market in every 
 important center, and a convenient system of col- 
 lection by road motors, there was no inducement 
 to cooperative proposals. 
 
 As yet George kept everything in his own hands, 
 with no ostensible object but the profit to be de- 
 rived from his enterprise. A certain percentage of 
 profit was divided by scale among the staff and 
 those who supplied the material; but, except that 
 every suggestion was welcomed and considered in 
 council with heads of departments, nobody shared 
 in the general direction of policy. George began 
 to see, however, that if he were to go forward, and 
 particularly if he were to carry out any of his more 
 speculative ideas, which involved building, such as 
 a repertory theater, a concert hall and an art gal- 
 lery, he must either issue shares among those who 
 were practically interested in Tracy's, or invite 
 capital from outside. In either case there would 
 have to be a division of control. 
 
 The Barstow premises he had already rebuilt. 
 Ledward was the architect. When George first 
 discussed the matter with him, Ledward talked 
 rather indifferently about styles. What was Tracy's 
 idea; Renaissance, Neo-Classic, Queen Anne or 
 what?
 
 THE CATFISH 381 
 
 " The shop style," said George. 
 
 " I suppose you know that there aren't any ex- 
 amples ? " said Ledward, eying him with interest. 
 
 " Well, there's your chance," said George. " I 
 give you a free hand, on condition that you build 
 me a place in which nothing is considered but the 
 practical needs of a modern shop. I don't want a 
 temple or a palace or a town hall. I want a shop, 
 and I want it to look like a shop and nothing but 
 a shop. At the same time, if you don't think that 
 a place can be savagely a shop and still the most 
 beautiful building in the world, you'd better think 
 it over before you agree to take on the job." 
 
 " Don't you worry about that," said Ledward. 
 " I was afraid you wanted another striking example 
 of modern commercial architecture in the some- 
 thing-or-other-style." 
 
 He said that though there were no shops in 
 England, he thought he could get a few hints from 
 Germany. The result not only satisfied George, 
 but made the beginning of Ledward's reputation. 
 People said that he had reconciled use and beauty. 
 He said that all the howlers he had ever seen were 
 the result of the purely modern superstition that 
 they were not the same thing. 
 
 Now, of course, Ledward was keen to build a
 
 382 THE CATFISH 
 
 theater in the theater style, and a concert hall in 
 the concert-hall style, and an art gallery in the art- 
 gallery style. Also the duchess was interested. 
 George recognized her moral value, but was not so 
 sure about her artistic ideas, which were rather ex- 
 clusively modern. She wanted to startle people; 
 he wanted to give them the plays and the music 
 and the pictures that they wanted without arousing 
 their suspicions. If he let in the duchess the 
 duke, he understood, was at her command he 
 would have to consider her tastes. 
 
 Altogether, he perceived that he was now ap- 
 proaching a crisis in his career. Having proved 
 his ability as a business man, he was receiving 
 friendly pressure from several directions. Subject 
 to a finger in the pie, he could have what money he 
 wanted for the asking, and the local authorities were 
 more than cordial to his ideas. But the strongest 
 pressure toward extending his activities at some 
 cost of individual freedom came from inside 
 Tracy's itself. Some time ago George had found 
 that the financial side of the business was getting 
 more than he could manage without limiting his 
 more practical energies. His instinct for the right 
 man sent him to Shelmerdine. Since Burroughs 
 and Tracy's Bank had lost its identity in the larger
 
 THE CATFISH 383 
 
 personal concern, he had no sentimental scruples 
 against approaching Shelmerdine, who was now 
 cashier at Exeter, and he secured him as financial 
 manager of Tracy's. 
 
 Shelmerdine had the characteristics of his race. 
 He knew everything about prices ; nothing whatever 
 about values. Without a fluctuating margin cre- 
 ated by the lapses between supply and demand, the 
 Jew would starve in the midst of plenty; value 
 must be translated into price before he becomes 
 aware of its existence. In his own department 
 Shelmerdine was admirable; he found good invest- 
 ments for spare capital, checked waste, and en- 
 couraged punctuality in the settlement of accounts 
 with both producers and customers. But he could 
 not be trusted outside the handling of accounts. 
 He was unable to distinguish between what people 
 wanted and what they could be induced to buy, 
 and his only test of capacity in subordinates was 
 " smartness," which meant skill in evading the cus- 
 tomer's demand, so that his influence in the sale- 
 rooms was always demoralizing. He had to be 
 kept severely chained to his office. 
 
 Here George found him stimulating and amusing. 
 Shelmerdine was full of ideas always ideas for 
 making money breed money. On the other hand,
 
 384 THE CATFISH 
 
 he had the racial instinct for reading other people's 
 desires and pandering to them. He would talk to 
 George by the hour about his "grand schemes," 
 which he evidently saw in terms of gilt and plush. 
 " Very nice little theater you could have down here. 
 I tell you the Empire would be a fool to it. But 
 of course you want capital. Now I know a 
 party " 
 
 George knew perfectly well that, so far as the 
 theater was concerned, Shelmerdine, though scrupu- 
 lously honest and loyal to Tracy's, was only 
 playing up to him. He would have talked with 
 the same enthusiasm if George had proposed a 
 " line " in cheap jewelry or bogus old masters. He 
 recognized that George had the gift of creating 
 prices, and he could not be happy until it was fully 
 exploited. His motive was not personal gain but 
 abstract reverence for profit. But though George 
 knew that Shelmerdine approached the business 
 from what in his own opinion was the wrong end, 
 he had great faith in his financial judgment, and 
 little by little he was losing his acute sense of the 
 difference between financial and commercial enter- 
 prise. After all, capital was a sort of raw material. 
 You couldn't do really big things without it. And 
 so far as the division of control was concerned, it
 
 THE CATFISH 385 
 
 was only a matter of Tracy's, Limited, instead of 
 Tracy's. He would still be managing director. 
 
 George got into the way of writing " Tracy's, 
 Limited," on blotting paper, to see how it looked. 
 Undoubtedly it meant that Tracy would be limited. 
 Sometimes he consented to meet the parties who, 
 either directly or through Shelmerdine, had ex- 
 pressed a desire to put money into Tracy's. He 
 would like to get an idea of how far Tracy would 
 be limited. Often, though not always, the par- 
 ties were of the conquering race. Generally they 
 were already Somebody, Limited, and their precise 
 hobby, whether coal, iron, motor-cars or tin mines, 
 was always the least part of their conversation. It 
 was in the character of promoters that they ad- 
 dressed themselves to him. They were always im- 
 mensely complimentary about Tracy's as far 
 as it went. Whenever the question of control 
 came up, they said in effect : " Don't you make 
 any mistake about that, Mr. Tracy. We recognize 
 business talent when we see it. Our only anxiety 
 is to extend your opportunities, with, of course, a 
 reasonable return upon our capital." 
 
 At last there came a proposal that was too im- 
 portant in its bearings to be treated in anything 
 but a practical spirit. Mr. Pope, the managing
 
 386 THE CATFISH 
 
 director of Sherlock's, Limited, the biggest depart- 
 ment store in London, asked for an interview. He 
 came and talked very frankly. Sherlock's had 
 branches in Liverpool and Manchester and in most 
 of the important towns in the Midlands. So 
 far they had not touched the West of England, 
 and they were prepared to admit that Tracy's had 
 got ahead of them there. Tracy's methods were 
 not theirs, but there could be no doubt that, with a 
 certain class of customer, Tracy's filled the bill. 
 That class of customer, in greater or smaller num- 
 bers, existed everywhere. Properly backed, there 
 was room for Tracy's in every town in the king- 
 dom, even in London itself. 
 
 That was the proposition. So far from wishing 
 to alter the character or policy of Tracy's, it 
 would be to the interest of Sherlock's to preserve 
 its independence. In London, at any rate, Sher- 
 lock's and Tracy's would appeal to different 
 publics. They overlapped, of course, but the re- 
 sults of the overlapping would be for the common 
 benefit. On the other hand, if Mr. Tracy did not 
 see his way to the amalgamation of interests 
 well, even in the West of England there were pick- 
 ings for Sherlock's. 
 
 George liked the man and recognized the im-
 
 THE CATFISH 387 
 
 portance of his proposal. The capital suggested 
 would enable him to start building his theater at 
 once and Pope emphasized the point that he 
 would be left with a free hand in that direction. 
 " We treat you as the Barstow development branch 
 of our business," he said. 
 
 Faced with the necessity for a speedy and vital 
 decision three weeks was the time agreed upon 
 George found that the two halves of him had 
 taken sides. On the one side were reason, policy 
 and ambition ; on the other nothing but a prejudice. 
 It might be expressed in the boyish axiom : " You 
 get good out of things in proportion as you do 
 not use them for any ulterior purpose." 
 
 He felt as if all his life he*had been dodging 
 this crisis. He was up against himself; he had to 
 decide whether to obey reason or instinct. The 
 more he looked into it, the more clearly he saw 
 that the instinct or prejudice, or whatever it 
 might be called, was connected with the deeper 
 unexplained part of his nature; the part that he 
 had never shared with anybody. For that reason 
 nobody could help him. If he talked to Lesbia 
 about his misgivings, he would be talking a lan- 
 guage that she did not understand. Whenever he 
 did ask her opinion she said : " I want you to
 
 388 THE CATFISH 
 
 please yourself," and he knew that she would be 
 absolutely loyal to his choice. Bothered as he was, 
 he recognized the humor, the poetic justice of the 
 situation. He had nobody to confide in but a 
 landscape. He was reduced to the imbecility of 
 saying to the Waterfall : " Well, what do you 
 think about it, Old Growler?" But, now that 
 he had domesticated the inspiration of his boy- 
 hood, he could not distinguish whether the Water- 
 fall said "Doom!" or "Boom!" 
 
 During the interval the Darraghs came down 
 in fulfilment of an old arrangement with Miles to 
 paint some panels for the living-room. Ironically, 
 
 the motive of the series was to be the Bourne. 
 
 
 
 George half wished that their visit could have 
 been postponed. He felt that the Darraghs would 
 be on the side of his prejudice, but would be 
 kept from speaking frankly by the implied criticism 
 of the rest of his affairs. In their opinion he 
 was already on the wrong tack. That, so far as 
 Miles was concerned, appeared to be the case; 
 when George talked to him about the proposal he 
 said that he didn't see that it made much difference. 
 George would have a free hand and fuller oppor- 
 tunities, wouldn't he? George felt rather irritably 
 that the point was whether or not he would have
 
 THE CATFISH 389 
 
 a free soul. Mary refused to be drawn. Ostensi- 
 bly she agreed with Lesbia that he ought to please 
 himself. The difference was and it came to him 
 with a shock that while Lesbia didn't know 
 which was himself, Mary emphatically did. Lesbia 
 spoke in good faith; Mary did not. He felt the 
 lurking humor in her eyes whenever the subject 
 was discussed in her presence. He had never be- 
 fore understood so plainly that Mary and Mary 
 alone had the key to the side door of his nature. 
 He had come to the limit of Miles's understanding 
 of him, but not to the limit of hers. 
 
 She was the only person in the world who could 
 tell him what he really wanted. He perceived the 
 irony of the fact that he had never applied to 
 himself the principle that had brought him suc- 
 cess in dealing with other people. When he asked 
 himself the reason why he had not, the answer 
 was : " Mary." Before he could be straight with 
 himself he must have it out with her and all his 
 life he had shirked it. 
 
 As the four of them sat in the living-room, after 
 dinner, it came to him suddenly that it was absurd 
 and exasperating that a woman with whom he was 
 not in love should so dominate his thoughts. 
 They had been talking about Sherlock's, and Mary's
 
 390 THE CATFISH 
 
 attitude, as she lay back in her chair with clasped 
 hands and an ironical light in her eyes, got on 
 his nerves. He contrasted her with Lesbia, so 
 perfectly content to accept his judgment as the best 
 in the world. Kate Flanders had made for Mary 
 a wonderful gown of black and gold, and Les- 
 bia had christened her "The Noble Snake"; and, 
 looking at her now, George said to himself that 
 if he didn't look out she would be a serpent in his 
 Eden. He got up and said bruskly: 
 
 " Come up into the Orchard, Mary." 
 
 Lesbia, who was lying on a couch, heaved a sigh 
 of relief and said: "Yes, take him away, Mary, 
 and talk to him like a mother. Miles and I will 
 be much happier without you." 
 
 Mary laughed, and got up slowly. Clanking a 
 little as she moved, she went over and stood by 
 the couch, looking down at Lesbia with an expres- 
 sion that George, in his irritable mood, supposed 
 he ought to call " enigmatic." Then Mary stooped 
 and kissed Lesbia, and with a sudden thrill of ex- 
 citement he knew that he was going to have it out 
 with Mary at last. 
 
 It was May, and the wide entrance was open, 
 letting the light across the flagged Court and up 
 the steps beyond. As they went up them, he ob-
 
 THE CATFISH 391 
 
 served half consciously that Mary had to adapt her 
 natural movement to the shallowness of the rise. 
 They did not speak until they were past the tennis- 
 courts and under the blossoming apple boughs. 
 Then he said : " What am I to do about this? " 
 
 " You know you hate it," she said quietly. 
 
 " You said that when I killed my first trout," 
 he said, with a vivid picture of the occasion. " But 
 I went on killing 'em," he added, after a pause. 
 
 "Am I to have nothing?" she said. 
 
 He was about to say: "What do you want?" 
 but that, in the atmosphere created by her tone, 
 seemed dishonest, and he said rather bitterly: 
 " It seems to me, Mary, that you've got pretty well 
 all that matters." 
 
 She laughed and said : " I've got Miles." He 
 was glad to hear her laugh. He knew that every- 
 thing had to be said now, and it was better that it 
 should be said lightly. 
 
 "And I've got Lesbia," he said. 
 
 "And there isn't a shadow of regret," she said, 
 as if to close that side of the subject. " Though," 
 ishe added, " there's just one thing I ought to tell 
 you. Miles knew." 
 
 "Knew what?" 
 
 "That I waited for you."
 
 392 THE CATFISH 
 
 The pang he felt was entirely for Lesbia, because 
 he had not been equally honest with her. But how 
 was he to know? 
 
 " You do things royally when you begin," he said 
 despairingly. 
 
 " So," said Mary, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if 
 she had not heard his last remark, " we have only 
 ourselves to reckon with." 
 
 " Let us have it clear," he said. " That day in 
 the train, going down to Holmhurst?" 
 
 " I was desperate," she said with a little laugh. 
 
 "I can explain all that," he said, as if he were 
 alluding to an old quarrel, " but go on." 
 
 "Could there be anything more?" she said in 
 an ironical tone. " Except that I waited to see 
 you with your wife," she added quietly. 
 
 It was the reverse of vanity that made him say : 
 "And if?" 
 
 " Yes, my friend," she said dryly, " if you had 
 needed me. But I saw that she was dear and good 
 and would make you happy and the rest you 
 know." 
 
 " I'm glad it was Miles," was all he could find 
 to say. 
 
 " Now," she said, with a little gasping laugh of 
 relief, as she turned and faced him, " don't you
 
 THE CATFISH 393 
 
 think I've earned some explanation? There are 
 some things that even the most immodest woman 
 ( doesn't quite understand." 
 
 Until now it had been more easy than he could 
 have believed, but now he hesitated. 
 
 " There was a woman," he said like a schoolboy, 
 and feeling that it was not more than a schoolboy 
 confession. 
 
 "Did you love her?" she asked quickly. 
 
 "No," he said. 
 
 " Then I still don't understand," she said merci- 
 lessly. 
 
 " And they told me that that you would never 
 marry anybody," he blurted out. 
 
 "They?" 
 
 "The Raymonds," he said, using the plural to 
 make it clearer. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said softly. " I thought there was 
 a stupidity somewhere. So it was I who was to 
 blame after all. Forgive me; I was immodest. 
 But there were reasons, as you might have guessed. 
 However be very wise with your son, George." 
 
 They moved on under the apple boughs with the 
 long wet grass brushing their feet. He thought of 
 the two in the lighted room behind them without 
 any sense of disloyalty. It was as if he and Mary
 
 394 THE CATFISH 
 
 were paying a debt long due to them. In a few 
 minutes they had cleared up the problems of nearly 
 half a lifetime. Her husband and his wife would 
 be safer than before. With only mild interest he 
 recognized that the first question he had asked 
 Mary was already answered. It seemed ridiculous 
 that there had ever been such a question. So easy 
 was it, when one paid one's debts. 
 
 " But this offer of Sherlock's, you know," he 
 said out of curiosity to know her reason, " why 
 exactly mustn't I ? " 
 
 " Because you hate it," she said. 
 " Yes, of course," he said, " but isn't there some 
 notion that it would confirm something that you 
 already consider mistaken ? " 
 
 " I thought so at first," she admitted, " and so 
 did Miles. But not now. Tracy's is you. The 
 other wouldn't be. I don't pretend to have thought 
 it out; I don't know enough about business. My 
 own idea is that we're coming to the end of busi- 
 ness, but while it's here it must be done faithfully. 
 You've taught me that." 
 
 It was his own idea of his father and the land 
 over again. She looked a little farther ahead, that 
 was all. 
 
 " Anyhow, I can't go back to Tracy's/' he said.
 
 THE CATFISH 395 
 
 "Of course you can't," she said, "you'll go on 
 and on. It may turn to something more definitely 
 public-spirited or it may not. It doesn't seem to 
 me to matter so long as it's you. You might be a 
 dictator or you might be a servant of servants. 
 The one thing that you couldn't be, and remain 
 you, is what do you call it? chairman of 
 directors." 
 
 It was so amusing to have her putting into 
 words things that had bothered him since childhood, 
 that he would have been glad to let her run on. 
 But she said : " Don't let us waste our time. 
 Let's talk about ourselves." 
 
 They had reached the top end of the Orchard and 
 leaned on the low wall, as he and his father had 
 leaned years and years ago. 
 
 " The way I work it out," he said, " is that you're 
 the how shall I put it? the imperative." 
 
 " ' Rapturous new name,' " she quoted ironically. 
 
 " Well, I'm not a bit in love with you," he said 
 stoutly. 
 
 " Oh, I've hated you for years and years," she 
 said. 
 
 "Upon my word," he exclaimed, as if she had 
 given him an idea. " I believe there's a lot of hate 
 mixed up with it."
 
 396 THE CATFISH 
 
 " Never mind what it is, my child," she said, 
 lightly touching his hand as it lay on the wall. 
 " It is ; and we've got to put up with it. Tell me 
 about the Servian princess and the Camp and your 
 mother. Most of all about your mother. A 
 woman, even a happy wife, does like to know, you 
 know." 
 
 It was easier than he would have supposed even 
 to talk about his mother. He was talking to him- 
 self the self that until now he had kept in a 
 sort of Coventry of woods and waters. She lis- 
 tened, with an occasional question or comment, 
 piecing together what he told her with what she 
 already surprisingly knew. Once he knew that she 
 was crying silently, though when she spoke again 
 it was lightly to say: 
 
 " You were a close-fisted little monkey, but after 
 all, she didn't understand you as I did from the 
 very first." 
 
 His ideas about the Bourne interested her ex- 
 tremely. When he spoke of the way he had got 
 back on the Waterfall by making it light his home 
 she was a little disturbed. 
 
 " I say," she said, " I'm not superstitious, but 
 isn't that rather reckless ? "
 
 THE CATFISH 397 
 
 " He roars as gently as any sucking dove," he 
 said. 
 
 " I don't think your Old Growler altogether ap- 
 proves of me," she said, looking in that direction. 
 " Listen to him ! " 
 
 " There's been a good deal of rain this spring, 
 and the river is very full," he said. "We had a 
 little trouble with the engine last week." 
 
 "What if the light went out," said Mary re- 
 flectively, " and then he came stalking, stalking." 
 
 "Don't be silly," he said, and wished that she 
 would come away. But she went on: 
 
 " What's that little pale wood against the dark 
 one, where the ground rises ? " 
 
 " The dark one " was the Grove. Somehow he 
 had not been able to tell even Mary about the Grove. 
 But he would take her there. Meanwhile he ex- 
 plained that the " little pale wood " was a scrap 
 of orchard at the edge of Gardiner's field. 
 
 "Why did you leave it untouched?" she said in- 
 terestedly. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he said like a schoolboy. 
 
 Mary laughed and said: "You dear thing, of 
 course you don't. But I do, and if I wanted any 
 proof that you are still you I should point to that.
 
 398 THE CATFISH 
 
 I shall call it ' Naboth's Orchard.' Miles wants to 
 paint blossom. I shall send him there he'll love 
 the story. Don't tell me any more let's go back 
 to them." 
 
 There were many things that he wanted to ask 
 her, but he knew that her mood was over. He 
 knew, also, that before they returned he might have 
 taken her in his arms and kissed her. She would 
 have acquiesced, but she would have been a little 
 disappointed at his thinking it necessary. 
 - Easy and natural as the experience had been, 
 he was a little astonished at his own lack of self- 
 consciousness on joining " them " again. From 
 Miles's expression, friendly though grave, George 
 surmised that he knew that something had been 
 said that had to be said. But Lesbia was entirely 
 innocent. 
 
 < " Thought you'd eloped," she said. " Have you 
 settled the business of the nation ? " 
 
 "We've settled Sherlock's hash," said George. 
 
 " I believe you're right," said Lesbia ; and Miles 
 said, " I'm jolly glad."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AT breakfast they were all unusually gay. 
 It was as if they said with a new meaning, 
 " Come, let us be friends now." So far as George 
 knew, except between him and Mary nothing had 
 been said, but a new affection was in the air. The 
 general tone of their mood was conveyed in Miles's 
 announcement that he was going down to paint pink 
 blossom against falling water. 
 
 They all made a great deal of Barbara. K 
 might have been a festival in her honor, and the 
 child was just old enough to feel the attention and 
 to say things that gave pretext for laughter that 
 might otherwise have seemed to betray emotional 
 instability an April rather than a May mood on 
 the part of three of the people concerned. The 
 child seemed strangely important. 
 
 Only Lesbia was quite serene. If she were 
 aware that more than Sherlock's hash had been 
 settled the night before, she was contented with 
 that result. She hated problems of any sort, and 
 
 399
 
 400 THE CATFISH 
 
 George's recovery from his recent irritation was 
 more than enough to please her loyal heart. 
 
 After breakfast Miles set off to paint blossom, 
 and Mary and Barbara accompanied him. They 
 would sit by the Waterfall and play ducks and 
 drakes " and water-thnakes," as Barbara kept 
 insisting, with a shake of Mary's hand. 
 
 George had writing to do. From the window 
 of his room under one of the gables he watched 
 them go up the Orchard, Miles and Mary each 
 holding one of Barbara's hands. The day was 
 blue and windy and the blossom was already adrift. 
 In " Naboth's Orchard," under the lee of Gar- 
 diner's field, it would be firmer and pinker 
 better for Miles's purpose he supposed. He was 
 glad he had kept " Naboth's Orchard " ; the panel 
 
 for Miles had " seen " in rose and silver just the 
 Bourne subject he wanted to complete the series 
 
 would be a permanent record of the clearing up 
 in friendship. Picturing to himself how Miles 
 would do it, George felt that he would be able to 
 read all sorts of things into the panel. The con- 
 trast between the frail blossom and the heavy 
 water would suggest the taming of Old Growler. 
 Also the panel would remind him of the duffer who 
 had made him relinquish in childhood the side of
 
 THE CATFISH 401 
 
 life that Miles and Mary represented. How, when 
 he came to think of it, everything in his life had 
 worked out for the best. 
 
 That everything had worked out for the best 
 between him and Mary he had no shadow of doubt. 
 His remark overnight that he was not a bit in love 
 with her had been uttered in all sincerity. Nor did 
 he believe that she was or had been in love with 
 him. The relation between them was not that. 
 It was something beyond love, and it left them 
 both free to love elsewhere. He could not find 
 a word for the relation, but since last night he had 
 found a better name for her than the Imperative. 
 It came out of an article he had read a few days 
 ago in a weekly newspaper. 
 
 At one time the North Sea fishermen brought 
 their cod to market in tanks in the holds of their 
 vessels. In the tanks the cod lived at ease, with the 
 result that they came to market slack, flabby and 
 limp. Some genius among fishermen introduced 
 one catfish into each of his tanks and found that 
 his cod came to market firm, brisk and wholesome. 
 The article went on to speak of the world's catfish 
 anything or anybody that introduced into life 
 the " queer, unpleasant, disturbing touch of the 
 kingdom of Heaven."
 
 402 THE CATFISH 
 
 Well, thought George amusedly, Mary was his 
 Catfish. She kept his soul alive. While he was 
 writing his letters the word kept coming into his 
 mind, and he said to himself that he must read the 
 article again. He had been working for about an 
 hour when he had the sense of something unusual 
 happening outside. He looked out of the window 
 a man came running down the Orchard with a 
 bundle in his arms. 
 
 George ran doiwn-stairs and out of the house 
 and met the man at the head of the steps. The 
 bundle was Barbara, wet and whimpering, wrapped 
 in a coat. 
 
 " The little 'un's all right, sir," cried the man, 
 " but Mrs. Darragh they're afraid she's dead." 
 
 George hardly glanced at the child. As he ran 
 up the Orchard his mind was full of dreadful 
 thoughts. There had always been a strangeness in 
 Mary. It was impossible ! That horror was merci- 
 fully short. At the field he met Andrews. 
 "Where?" he said, and Andrews, turning to run 
 with him, said : " At the mill ; they've sent for 
 Doctor Burchell, but I'm afraid it's no use." The 
 child had fallen in; Mary, calling to Miles, had 
 plunged after her, and Miles had saved the one but 
 lost the other.
 
 THE CATFISH 403 
 
 They had laid her in that room now in the 
 possession of decent old couple. When he entered 
 the room they had given her up. Burchell was 
 there, and he said that she must have been dead 
 when they took her out of the water. They left 
 George and Miles alone with her. George noticed 
 for the first time that her hair was a little gray. 
 
 In Miles' face, as they clasped hands, he saw 
 grief, pride and a most beautiful compassion. 
 With clairvoyant mind he understood that Miles 
 was sorry for him because it was in saving Barbara 
 that he had lost Mary. It would have seemed 
 natural if Miles had said to him, as he had said to 
 Miles when he got news of his mother's death, " I'm 
 sorry, old chap." But all that Miles said now was : 
 " She should have gone with the stream." 
 
 At the moment the words conveyed nothing to 
 him, but afterward, when he talked to Burchell 
 and the miller's man who had run to help Miles, 
 they were made plain. Burdened with the child, 
 she had exhausted herself in breasting the stream. 
 It was natural that she should make this mistake; 
 Below, a high smooth wall on either side made 
 landing impossible, and beyond was the dark bridge. 
 But a few yards farther on the deep swift current 
 slackened and broke against a ridge of stones,
 
 404 THE CATFISH 
 
 thereafter to flow secretly murmuring through the 
 Grove. With his second plunge, after throwing 
 the child on the spit of land whence she had fallen, 
 Miles had been carried down with Mary under the 
 bridge to an easy landing on the stones. From 
 the room where she now lay the little window spied 
 upon the place where she had come to rest. 
 
 Last night he had said to himself that he would 
 take her to the Grove. She had found her way to 
 the Grove alone. What secret the Grove held for 
 him was made clear, and now the Bourne could 
 not hurt him any more. 
 
 If but the " ifs " began with her first narrow 
 glance at him in the nursery. Rahab's window, 
 the panel which was to record their belated ex- 
 planation even her swift homing to him in the 
 train were but crude comments upon the central 
 infidelity of soul to soul. He had well said that 
 he did not love her. She was love. 
 
 Everything that came after was a separate little 
 comment upon the tangle of their lives. Later in 
 the day he was with Lesbia, she thankfully holding 
 the child in her arms. Barbara, unable to take in 
 what had happened, but feeling that she was the 
 heroine, piped her version of the accident. For a
 
 THE CATFISH 405 
 
 time she and Aunt Mary played together while 
 Uncle Miles painted up in the field. Then Aunt 
 Mary sat down to think. She kept smiling and 
 smiling. George could see her; while he had sat 
 in his room smiling at his notion of her place in 
 his life, she had sat there smiling, at what thoughts 
 he could never know. But he was glad she had 
 smiled at the end. Barbara had called to Aunt 
 Mary once or twice, but Aunt Mary had only said, 
 " Don't go too near the water, my child." Then 
 Barbara had seen a " truly water-thnake " and 
 George could see the rope of green weed he had so 
 described to the child in jesting memory of his own 
 childhood. Barbara knew she was naughty, and 
 she wouldn't do it again, but she had got a stick 
 and tried to hook out the water-snake. Then she 
 had tumbled in. 
 
 Picturing the scene, and imagining what he 
 would have done, George averted his eyes from the 
 child because of a thought he must not harbor. 
 Lesbia put out her hand and said: 
 
 " I know, dear." 
 
 He turned to her with a broken word, and saw 
 in her eyes something that he had never seen there 
 before. To the wisdom of joy that was always
 
 406 THE CATFISH 
 
 hers was now added that other wisdom of sorrow 
 without which their love had remained imperfect 
 It was only then he understood that Mary had 
 brought them together.
 
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